Count Decimal Places

Name: Count Decimal Places
Author: Jürgen Kummer

Here you can count the digits before the decimal separator and the digits after the decimal separator of a number of any length. Please enter a number with a comma or point as the decimal separator. Leading zeros are not counted. Ending zeros of the decimal places after the separator are counted, as they provide an indication of the accuracy. Only digits and one decimal separator are allowed as input. Spaces in the number can remain, these are ignored.

This is useful for very long numbers with unknown precision. The number of decimal places is often particularly interesting to see how the rounding was performed. Rounding is often necessary, but it involves a potential loss of information. Ideally, rounding should be done where the accuracy of the measurement or the method used to determine the value ends.
The number of decimal places before the separator is no longer visible at a glance for large numbers, so you have no idea what order of magnitude you are dealing with. Here, specifying the number of digits is very helpful, but specifying them as powers of ten is more common. But the number of digits allows such a number to be written legibly as a power of ten. For example, for the number 5 trillion, which has thirteen digits, you would write 5 * 10¹². The magnitude of the power is therefore one less than the number of digits. This is because 10¹ is, of course, ten, but this is a two-digit number. Raising the power by an integer also increases the number of digits by that amount.

Last updated on 08/13/2025. Author: Jürgen Kummer

	Point or comma as decimal separator (no separation of digits with . or , for a better overview)
	Point as decimal separator, ignore comma (e.g. with English spelling 123,456.789,012)
	Comma as decimal separator, ignore point (e.g. with German spelling 123.456,789.012)