Mod Function with Negative Numbers

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Posted on 29 Jul 2022 19:15:37 by maria3

I have a complex expression I'm working with in Power Automate that has been causing some problems. I've narrowed the issue down to the part of the expression that uses the mod function. It produces the expected results if the dividend is not a negative number. When the dividend is a negative number, the result isn't as expected. For example, if in Power Automate I have this function

mod(sub(7,11),3) the result is -1. However, I would expect that the result should be 2. If I use an equivalent function in Excel =MOD((7-11),3) I get 2 as I would expect. Why should the result be different? In this example shouldn't the result from the Power Automate function be 2? Again, it seems this issue only occurs when the dividend is a negative number. Any help or thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

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AS-06081019-0 1,736 Super User 2024 Season 1 on 29 Jul 2022 at 20:55:43

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Re: Mod Function with Negative Numbers

@maria3 It is evident that this is the case, the question is why ? Sharing a link for further reading and answer to why https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/modulo-operations-in-programming-with-negative-results/ . I believe yours is a classic case, for which you will not find in any power automate demo(no negative numbers in example). Therefore, I would recommend you to change the logic i.e do the mod operation in excel and pull the result in flow if you can.

Hope it helps!!

Cheers,
Ankesh
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