Floor and ceiling functions

In mathematics, the floor function (or greatest integer function) is the function that takes as input a real number x, and gives as output the greatest integer less than or equal to x, denoted ⌊x⌋ or floor(x). Similarly, the ceiling function maps x to the smallest integer greater than or equal to x, denoted ⌈x⌉ or ceil(x).

For example, for floor: ⌊2.4⌋ = 2, ⌊−2.4⌋ = −3, and for ceiling: ⌈2.4⌉ = 3, and ⌈−2.4⌉ = −2.

Historically, the floor of x has been–and still is–called the integral part or integer part of x, often denoted [x] (as well as a variety of other notations). However, the same term, integer part, is also used for truncation towards zero, which differs from the floor function for negative numbers.

For n an integer, ⌊n⌋ = ⌈n⌉ = [n] = n.

Although floor(x+1) and ceil(x) produce graphs that appear exactly alike, they are not the same when the value of x is an exact integer. For example, when x=2.0001; ⌊2.0001+1⌋ = ⌈2.0001⌉ = 3. However, if x=2, then ⌊2+1⌋ = 3, while ⌈2⌉ = 2.