The integer division is a common and useful operation in Computer Science. It comes up in many domains, as in the manipulation of matrices and grids.
Is there any formal symbol for this operation? Or at least a widely recognisable symbol that can be easily differentiated from the standard division (i.e. inverse of multiplication)?
Update: Please do not answer explaining how to use the integer division on this or that programming language. This question is strictly on the formalism to represent this operation.
In Python, you can use double standard operation division: //
Example: 7//3 returns 2
In programming languages s.a. C,C++ etc when the variables are integer, the standard division operator / works as an integer division operator but i too wonder if in math there is any operator for this.
that is a good question. Normally I would not bother and use variables to make it happen. Something like int c = (int)a / b; int d = a % b; or ⌊a/b⌋⌊a/b⌋ or (a−amodb)/b(a−amodb)/b it tends to be what you are comfortable with and if it works as intended. That and you have all the things in check to make sure you do not get those pesky code breaking math issues. I would just make a class that does what you need it to do and call the class if needing to variate from standard division. Then you can recycle the bit of code if you are doing more complex mathematics stuff. Now getting into making a computer recognize imaginary numbers is another thing I entirely. Though that is probably already done in a library somewhere. I have the code for it on a flash drive from college (somewhere) the manual way. Division of imaginary numbers in C++ and figuring that out lost me a lot of sleep lol.
In Python, you can use double standard operation division: //
Example: 7//3 returns 2
As others have pointed out, there is no standard symbol for the integer division. Which is somewhat understandable since it is an operation more common in Computer Science than in formal Mathematics.
Therefore, one should try to use a symbol or character sequence not so common in Mathematics and then explicitly define it in the text. Personally, I prefer the \ (backslash) character, that is popular among LaTeX users. It can be employed as:
\begin{equation}
a = c \backslash b
\end{equation}
It is common to use [a/b], at least in some part of the mathematics literature.
Luis, can you clarify that when you say a formal symbol for integer division, you are referring to the Quotient Q of two integers A and B, implying the existence of another term R, the Remainder (Q and R also integers), so that:
A = Q B + R
...where R is non-negative in the set { 0 ... |B| - 1 }.
[There is a choice of conventions to follow when A or B are negative, and I have implied one here by presuming non-negative remainder based on the absolute value of B. There are some less ambiguous nits to pick if B==0.]
Anyway, if a symbol for Quotient is what your looking for, I'm looking for that as well as a symbol for the Remainder.
Note that the Quotient was also frequently called the Modulus in mathematics, until Computer Scientists got it backwards in many popular programming languages. Modulo B is the name of the division operation where B is the Divisor
So, please, no suggestions that the Remainder is called "mod" (or % or %%) because that's just ... sad.
I would recommend div. In latex integer division could be written as a\ \mathbf{div}\ b to give a div b.
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