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In Power Query, you may encounter unexpected results when performing basic arithmetic. Here's a simple example:
Queries don't get much simpler than this!
You might reasonably expect the result to be 0.3, but here's what you actually see:
Where did all the extra decimal places come from?!
The odd result is because Power Query uses floating point precision when performing arithmetic like this. To make your result more accurate, you can use a function to perform the addition and choose the precision of the result.
Use the Value.Add function and use Decimal precision.
This performs the arithmetic with the specified precision producing the following result:
The result is now what I originally expected!
The Power Query M formula language has several other functions for performing arithmetic with a specific precision, including Value.Subtract, Value.Divide and Value.Multiply.
You can learn more about this topic on the following Wise Owl courses:
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