PEP 238 states clearly that the result of x // y is a float, when x and y both have type float.

For floating point inputs, the result is a float. For example:

3.5//2.0 == 1.0

And indeed this is the behaviour that's been in place since Python 2.2. However, we seem to be missing a clear statement of this in the official docs. It would be good to fix that.

Motivated by the thread https://discuss.python.org/t/make-float-floordiv-and-rfloordiv-return-an-int/24959, where it's been asserted that this behaviour is an 'implementation detail'.

Linked PRs

• gh-102823: Document return type of floor division on floats #102824
• [3.12] gh-102823: Document return type of floor division on floats (GH-102824) #109092
• [3.11] gh-102823: Document return type of floor division on floats (GH-102824) #109093