Objective-c – Rounding numbers in Objective-C

cocoaformattingmacosobjective-crounding

I'm trying to do some number rounding and conversion to a string to enhance the output in an Objective-C program.

I have a float value that I'd like to round to the nearest .5 and then use it to set the text on a label.

For example:

1.4 would be a string of: 1.5

1.2 would be a string of: 1

0.2 would be a string of: 0

I've spent a while looking on Google for an answer but, being a noob with Objective-C, I'm not sure what to search for! So, I'd really appreciate a pointer in the right direction!

Thanks,
Ash

Best Solution

Thanks for the pointers everyone, I've managed to come up with a solution:

float roundedValue = round(2.0f * number) / 2.0f;
NSNumberFormatter *formatter = [[NSNumberFormatter alloc] init];
[formatter setMaximumFractionDigits:1];
[formatter setRoundingMode: NSNumberFormatterRoundDown];

NSString *numberString = [formatter stringFromNumber:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:roundedValue]];
[formatter release];

The above works for the test cases I threw at it, but if anyone knows a better way to do this I'd be interested to hear it!

Intl.NumberFormat

JavaScript has a number formatter (part of the Internationalization API).

// Create our number formatter.
var formatter = new Intl.NumberFormat('en-US', {
  style: 'currency',
  currency: 'USD',

  // These options are needed to round to whole numbers if that's what you want.
  //minimumFractionDigits: 0, // (this suffices for whole numbers, but will print 2500.10 as $2,500.1)
  //maximumFractionDigits: 0, // (causes 2500.99 to be printed as $2,501)
});

formatter.format(2500); /* $2,500.00 */

Use undefined in place of the first argument ('en-US' in the example) to use the system locale (the user locale in case the code is running in a browser). Further explanation of the locale code.

Here's a list of the currency codes.

Intl.NumberFormat vs Number.prototype.toLocaleString

A final note comparing this to the older .toLocaleString. They both offer essentially the same functionality. However, toLocaleString in its older incarnations (pre-Intl) does not actually support locales: it uses the system locale. So when debugging old browsers, be sure that you're using the correct version (MDN suggests to check for the existence of Intl). There isn't any need to worry about this at all if you don't care about old browsers or just use the shim.

Also, the performance of both is the same for a single item, but if you have a lot of numbers to format, using Intl.NumberFormat is ~70 times faster. Therefore, it's usually best to use Intl.NumberFormat and instantiate only once per page load. Anyway, here's the equivalent usage of toLocaleString:

(2500).toLocaleString('en-US', {
  style: 'currency',
  currency: 'USD',
}); /* $2,500.00 */

Some notes on browser support and Node.js

Browser support is no longer an issue nowadays with 98% support globally, 99% in the US and 99+% in the EU
There is a shim to support it on fossilized browsers (like Internet Explorer 8), should you really need to
Node.js before v13 only supports en-US out of the box. One solution is to install full-icu, see here for more information
Have a look at CanIUse for more information

Objective-c – Generating random numbers in Objective-C

You should use the arc4random_uniform() function. It uses a superior algorithm to rand. You don't even need to set a seed.

#include <stdlib.h>
// ...
// ...
int r = arc4random_uniform(74);

The arc4random man page:

NAME
     arc4random, arc4random_stir, arc4random_addrandom -- arc4 random number generator

LIBRARY
     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <stdlib.h>

     u_int32_t
     arc4random(void);

     void
     arc4random_stir(void);

     void
     arc4random_addrandom(unsigned char *dat, int datlen);

DESCRIPTION
     The arc4random() function uses the key stream generator employed by the arc4 cipher, which uses 8*8 8
     bit S-Boxes.  The S-Boxes can be in about (2**1700) states.  The arc4random() function returns pseudo-
     random numbers in the range of 0 to (2**32)-1, and therefore has twice the range of rand(3) and
     random(3).

     The arc4random_stir() function reads data from /dev/urandom and uses it to permute the S-Boxes via
     arc4random_addrandom().

     There is no need to call arc4random_stir() before using arc4random(), since arc4random() automatically
     initializes itself.

EXAMPLES
     The following produces a drop-in replacement for the traditional rand() and random() functions using
     arc4random():

           #define foo4random() (arc4random() % ((unsigned)RAND_MAX + 1))

Best Solution

Related Solutions

Javascript – How to format numbers as currency strings

Intl.NumberFormat

Intl.NumberFormat vs Number.prototype.toLocaleString

Some notes on browser support and Node.js

Objective-c – Generating random numbers in Objective-C

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