Percentage stored as a fraction of 1: What is this called?

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I have a column in a database table called CONDITION_PERCENT.

It has values like:

  • 1
  • 0.1
  • 0.01

Which are meant to represent:

  • 100%
  • 10%
  • 1%

I suspect that referring to these values as percentages might be incorrect. Calling them percentages certainly seems to be misleading my users (everyone expects the values to be fractions of 100, not fractions of 1).

What is the proper name for percentage values that are a fraction of 1?

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On BEST ANSWER

It's just the decimal representation of a percent. A percent is always /100 that's literally what it means, "per cent". Or part per hundred. For 57%,

  • The decimal representation is 0.57
  • The fractional representation is 57/100

Note there are things that are parts per for different units,

  • part per thousand (ppt) permille, symbol ‰
  • part per ten thousand, permyriad ,symbol ‱
  • part per hundred thousand (ppm), per cent mille.

And the list goes on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts-per_notation#Thousand

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A proportion. It usually takes values between $0$ and $1$.