Modulo

In computing, the modulo operation returns the remainder or signed remainder of a division, after one number is divided by another (called the modulus of the operation). Given two positive numbers a and n, a modulo n (often abbreviated as a mod n) is the remainder of the Euclidean division of a by n, where a is the dividend and n is the divisor. For example, the expression "5 mod 2" would evaluate to 1, because 5 divided by 2 has a quotient of 2 and a remainder of 1, while "9 mod 3" would evaluate to 0, because 9 divided by 3 has a quotient of 3 and a remainder of 0; there is nothing to subtract from 9 after multiplying 3 times 3. Although typically performed with a and n both being integers, many computing systems now allow other types of numeric operands. The range of values for an integer modulo operation of n is 0 to n − 1 inclusive (a mod 1 is always 0; a mod 0 is undefined, possibly resulting in a division by zero error in some programming languages). See Modular arithmetic for an older and related convention applied in number theory. When exactly one of a or n is negative, the naive definition breaks down, and programming languages differ in how these values are defined. In mathematics, the result of the modulo operation is an equivalence class, and any member of the class may be chosen as representative; however, the usual representative is the least positive residue, the smallest non-negative integer that belongs to that class (i.e., the remainder of the Euclidean division). However, other conventions are possible. Computers and calculators have various ways of storing and representing numbers; thus their definition of the modulo operation depends on the programming language or the underlying hardware. In nearly all computing systems, the quotient q and the remainder r of a divided by n satisfy the following conditions: However, this still leaves a sign ambiguity if the remainder is non-zero: two possible choices for the remainder occur, one negative and the other positive, and two possible choices for the quotient occur.