Truncate/round whole number in JavaScript?

If you have a string, parse it as an integer:

var num = '20.536';
var result = parseInt(num, 10);  // 20

If you have a number, ECMAScript 6 offers Math.trunc for completely consistent truncation, already available in Firefox 24+ and Edge:

var num = -2147483649.536;
var result = Math.trunc(num);  // -2147483649

If you can’t rely on that and will always have a positive number, you can of course just use Math.floor:

var num = 20.536;
var result = Math.floor(num);  // 20

And finally, if you have a number in [−2147483648, 2147483647], you can truncate to 32 bits using any bitwise operator. | 0 is common, and >>> 0 can be used to obtain an unsigned 32-bit integer:

var num = -20.536;
var result = num | 0;  // -20

Travis Pessetto's answer along with mozey's trunc2 function were the only correct answers, considering how JavaScript represents very small or very large floating point numbers in scientific notation.

For example, parseInt(-2.2043642353916286e-15) will not correctly parse that input. Instead of returning 0 it will return -2.

This is the correct (and imho the least insane) way to do it:

function truncate(number)
{
    return number > 0
         ? Math.floor(number)
         : Math.ceil(number);
}

I'll add my solution here. We can use floor when values are above 0 and ceil when they are less than zero:

function truncateToInt(x)
{
    if(x > 0)
    {
         return Math.floor(x);
    }
    else
    {
         return Math.ceil(x);
    }
 }

Then:

y = truncateToInt(2.9999); // results in 2
y = truncateToInt(-3.118); //results in -3

Notice: This answer was written when Math.trunc(x) was fairly new and not supported by a lot of browsers. Today, modern browsers support Math.trunc(x).


Convert the number to a string and throw away everything after the decimal.

trunc = function(n) { return Number(String(n).replace(/\..*/, "")) }

trunc(-1.5) === -1

trunc(1.5) === 1

Edit 2013-07-10

As pointed out by minitech and on second thought the string method does seem a bit excessive. So comparing the various methods listed here and elsewhere:

function trunc1(n){ return parseInt(n, 10); }
function trunc2(n){ return n - n % 1; }
function trunc3(n) { return Math[n > 0 ? "floor" : "ceil"](n); }
function trunc4(n) { return Number(String(n).replace(/\..*/, "")); }

function getRandomNumber() { return Math.random() * 10; }

function test(func, desc) {
    var t1, t2;
    var ave = 0;
    for (var k = 0; k < 10; k++) {
        t1 = new Date().getTime();
        for (var i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
            window[func](getRandomNumber());
        }
        t2 = new Date().getTime();
        ave += t2 - t1;
    }
    console.info(desc + " => " + (ave / 10));
}

test("trunc1", "parseInt");
test("trunc2", "mod");
test("trunc3", "Math");
test("trunc4", "String");

The results, which may vary based on the hardware, are as follows:

parseInt => 258.7
mod      => 246.2
Math     => 243.8
String   => 1373.1

The Math.floor / ceil method being marginally faster than parseInt and mod. String does perform poorly compared to the other methods.