How to convert very small numbers from strings to floats properly in Python?

Question

I have a number like this:

n = "0.000016495822225857"

But after converting this to a float using:

num = float(n)

I get:

1.64958e+13

My number is less than 1, how can I convert it properly so that I can round these values that are less than 1? But right now after conversion, it's greater than 1.

Is this because of floating point precision?

Answer 1

No clue why this is happening (sorry about that).

What I do know is that you can use the decimal module as a workaround.

from decimal import Decimal
n = "0.000016495822225857"
d = Decimal(n)

output

0.000016495822225857

If I'm not blind, the input and output look the same.