TITLE: Is it possible to simulate a floor() function with elementary arithmetic?
QUESTION [50 upvotes]: I'm using a "programming language" that only allows basic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Is it possible to emulate a floor function (i.e. drop the decimals a number) by using only those operators? I'm only interested in positive numbers
Edit: Here's the documentation describing what's possible (which is only elementary arithmetic)

REPLY [2 votes]: Programming languages typically use floating-point arithmetic defined by the IEEE 754 standard. Roughly speaking, if the exact result of an operation calculated using mathematical real arithmetic has an absolute value $2^k ≤ x < 2^{k+1}$, then x will be rounded to the nearest integer multiple of $2^{k-52}$. The exception is the case where x is exactly between the two nearest integer multiples of $2^{k-52}$, in which case x will be rounded to the even multiple. 
If the absolute value x is between $2^{52} ≤ x < 2^{53}$, then x will be rounded to the nearest integer or the nearest even integer if x is exactly between two integers. Any floating-point numbers with an absolute value $x ≥ 2^{52}$ are actually integers. And any floating-point operation where the exact result is an integer with $-2^{53} ≤ x ≤ 2^{53}$ will give the exact result. 
This gives a simple implementation: If the absolute value of x is $2^{52}$ or greater then x is an integer and floor (x) = x. Otherwise; first add then subtract $2^{52}$ from x if x >= 0, but first subtract then add $2^{52}$ to x if x < 0. This rounds x to one of the two nearest integers. If the result is greater than the original value of x, subtract 1. 
I think this is quite close to the implementation that is typically used by current compilers.