Display a number with commas

Question

Here's a way to display a number with commas. See attached
code.
I had searched here for help on how to do it, and couldn't
find anything. So, then I wrote this. I'm a hack, self-taught
coder, so there may be a more eloquent way, but this does
work.

Answer 1

Nice, I'm always happy to be humbled.
One more point. If you're going ot use a return statement I
like to keep it
at the very end of the function. So, in a conditional
statement, setting a
local variable to the value to be returned allows you to
return that local
variable and always keep the return statement as the last
line. It just
saves a little searching around for returns in longer
functions. Just a
style choice not necessarily better.
Craig Wollman
Word of Mouth Productions
phone [phone]
fax [phone]
159-00 Riverside Drive West #5H-70
NY, NY 10032
www.wordofmouthpros.com
"duckets" <[email protected]> wrote in
message
news:[email protected]...
>
quote:
Originally posted by:
FasterPastor
> I had searched here for help on how to do it, and
couldn't find
> anything.
>
> You should have asked! here's one I have had sitting
around for a while.
> (code
> attached below). It handles lots of cases which the
other handlers posted
> so
> far do not. Specifically:
>
> Negative numbers - input: -123456
> - craig's: -,123,456
> - dougs's: -,123,456
> - mikes's: -,123,456
> - duck's: -123,456
>
> Floating point numbers - input: pi
> - craig's: 3
> - dougs's: 3
> - mikes's: 3.1,416
> - duck's: 3.1416
>
> Numbers larger than the maxinteger - input: 149668992000
> - craig's: -,654,863,360
> - dougs's: -,654,863,360
> - mikes's: 14,966,899,200,0.0,000
> - duck's: 149,668,992,000
>
> Negative floats - input: -123456.7890
> - craig's: -,123,457
> - dougs's: -,123,457
> - mikes's: -12,345,6.7,890
> - duck's: -123,456.789
>
> Floats larger than the maxinteger - input:
2233445566.7788
> - craig's: -2,061,521,729
> - dougs's: -2,061,521,729
> - mikes's: 223,344,556,6.7,788
> - duck's: 2,233,445,566.7788
>
> Yes.. the code is longer, but if you want to print
something like the
> distance
> in meters to the sun, you need to handle floats
properly!
>
> enjoy ;-)
>
> - Ben
>
>
>
> on stringNumber n
>
> outputString = ""
> inputString = string(n)
>
> if inputString.char[1] = "-" then
> negative = true
> delete inputString.char[1]
> else
> negative = false
> end if
>
> fraction = ""
>
> if inputString contains "e" then
>
> mantissa = inputString.char[1..(offset("e",
inputString)-1)]
> exponent = value(inputString.char[(offset("e",
> inputString)+1)..inputString.length])
>
> decimalChar = mantissa.char[2]
> mantissa = mantissa.char[1] &
mantissa.char[3..mantissa.length]
>
> if mantissa.length < exponent+1 then
> plainNumber = mantissa
> repeat while plainNumber.length < exponent+1
> put "0" after plainNumber
> end repeat
> else
> plainNumber = mantissa.char[1..(exponent+1)]
> fraction = mantissa.char[(exponent+2)..mantissa.length]
> end if
>
> else
>
> if offset(".", inputString)>0 then
> decimalChar = "."
> end if
> if offset(",", inputString)>0 then
> decimalChar = ","
> end if
>
> if offset(decimalChar, inputString)>0 then
> plainNumber = inputString.char[1..(offset(decimalChar,
> inputString)-1)]
> fraction = inputString.char[(offset(decimalChar,
> inputString)+1)..inputString.length]
> else
> plainNumber = inputString
> fraction = ""
> decimalChar = string(1.2).char[2]
> end if
>
> end if
>
> if decimalChar = "." then
> separatorChar = ","
> else
> separatorChar = "."
> end if
>
>
> repeat while plainNumber.char[1] = "0"
> delete plainNumber.char[1]
> end repeat
>
>
> repeat while plainNumber.length > 0
> if plainNumber.length > 3 then
> nextDigits =
>
separatorChar&plainNumber.char[plainNumber.length-2..plainNumber.length]
> delete
plainNumber.char[plainNumber.length-2..plainNumber.length]
> else
> nextDigits = plainNumber
> plainNumber = ""
> end if
> put nextDigits before outputString
> end repeat
>
> repeat while fraction.char[fraction.length] = "0"
> delete fraction.char[fraction.length]
> end repeat
>
> if fraction.length > 0 then
> put decimalChar&fraction after outputString
> end if
>
>
> if negative then
> put "-" before outputString
> end if
>
> return outputString
>
> end
>