# Difference between % and mod

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/difference-between-and-mod/102630>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question\
**Created:** [August 9, 2023, 10:57am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/difference-between-and-mod/102630 "2023-08-09T10:57:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![janrpeters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@janrpeters](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/janrpeters)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 10:57am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/difference-between-and-mod/102630/1 "2023-08-09T10:57:41Z")

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For  
‘’’  
(-3.2) % π  
‘’’  
I get  
‘’’  
-0.05840734641020706  
‘’’  
but for  
‘’’  
mod(-3.2,π)  
‘’’  
I get  
‘’’  
3.083185307179586  
‘’’  
I like the latter for my purpose but is that difference a bug or a feature?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cmarcotte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a3d4f5/32.png) [@cmarcotte](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/cmarcotte)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2023, 11:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/difference-between-and-mod/102630/2 "2023-08-09T11:02:14Z")

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If you use the help feature `? mod` you’ll see that `%` is an alias for `rem(x, y)`, while `mod(x,y) = rem(x,y, RoundDown)`. So these are slightly different functions.