Modulus Operator

Another very important operator called Modulus operator which works on integers and yields the remainder when the first operand is divided by the second. In Python as in most programming languages the modulus operator is a percent sign (%). The syntax is the same as for other operators.

>>> quo = 10/3 
>>>print quo 
3 
>>>remainder = 10 % 3
>>>print remainder 
1 

In previous example 10 divide by 3 is 3 with 1 left over.

The actual result can be computed in following way.

>>>10/3.0 
3.3333333333333335

The modulus operator turns out to be very useful. You can check whether one number is divisible by another. If x%y is zero than x is divisible by y.

Also, you can extract the right-most digit or digits from a number. For example, x % 10 yields the right-most digit of x (in base 10). Similarly x % 100 yields the last two digits.

>>>5%10
5
>>>5 / 10.0
0.5
>>>x = 50 
>>>x % 100
50
>>>50 / 100.0
0.5