Avoid trailing zeroes in printf()
Solution 1:
This can't be done with the normal printf format specifiers. The closest you could get would be:
printf("%.6g", 359.013); // 359.013
printf("%.6g", 359.01); // 359.01
but the ".6" is the total numeric width so
printf("%.6g", 3.01357); // 3.01357
breaks it.
What you can do is to sprintf("%.20g") the number to a string buffer then manipulate the string to only have N characters past the decimal point.
Assuming your number is in the variable num, the following function will remove all but the first N decimals, then strip off the trailing zeros (and decimal point if they were all zeros).
char str[50];
sprintf (str,"%.20g",num); // Make the number.
morphNumericString (str, 3);
: :
void morphNumericString (char *s, int n) {
char *p;
int count;
p = strchr (s,'.'); // Find decimal point, if any.
if (p != NULL) {
count = n; // Adjust for more or less decimals.
while (count >= 0) { // Maximum decimals allowed.
count--;
if (*p == '\0') // If there's less than desired.
break;
p++; // Next character.
}
*p-- = '\0'; // Truncate string.
while (*p == '0') // Remove trailing zeros.
*p-- = '\0';
if (*p == '.') { // If all decimals were zeros, remove ".".
*p = '\0';
}
}
}
If you're not happy with the truncation aspect (which would turn 0.12399 into 0.123 rather than rounding it to 0.124), you can actually use the rounding facilities already provided by printf. You just need to analyse the number before-hand to dynamically create the widths, then use those to turn the number into a string:
#include <stdio.h>
void nDecimals (char *s, double d, int n) {
int sz; double d2;
// Allow for negative.
d2 = (d >= 0) ? d : -d;
sz = (d >= 0) ? 0 : 1;
// Add one for each whole digit (0.xx special case).
if (d2 < 1) sz++;
while (d2 >= 1) { d2 /= 10.0; sz++; }
// Adjust for decimal point and fractionals.
sz += 1 + n;
// Create format string then use it.
sprintf (s, "%*.*f", sz, n, d);
}
int main (void) {
char str[50];
double num[] = { 40, 359.01335, -359.00999,
359.01, 3.01357, 0.111111111, 1.1223344 };
for (int i = 0; i < sizeof(num)/sizeof(*num); i++) {
nDecimals (str, num[i], 3);
printf ("%30.20f -> %s\n", num[i], str);
}
return 0;
}
The whole point of nDecimals() in this case is to correctly work out the field widths, then format the number using a format string based on that. The test harness main() shows this in action:
40.00000000000000000000 -> 40.000
359.01335000000000263753 -> 359.013
-359.00999000000001615263 -> -359.010
359.00999999999999090505 -> 359.010
3.01357000000000008200 -> 3.014
0.11111111099999999852 -> 0.111
1.12233439999999995429 -> 1.122
Once you have the correctly rounded value, you can once again pass that to morphNumericString() to remove trailing zeros by simply changing:
nDecimals (str, num[i], 3);
into:
nDecimals (str, num[i], 3);
morphNumericString (str, 3);
(or calling morphNumericString at the end of nDecimals but, in that case, I'd probably just combine the two into one function), and you end up with:
40.00000000000000000000 -> 40
359.01335000000000263753 -> 359.013
-359.00999000000001615263 -> -359.01
359.00999999999999090505 -> 359.01
3.01357000000000008200 -> 3.014
0.11111111099999999852 -> 0.111
1.12233439999999995429 -> 1.122
Solution 2:
To get rid of the trailing zeros, you should use the "%g" format:
float num = 1.33;
printf("%g", num); //output: 1.33
After the question was clarified a bit, that suppressing zeros is not the only thing that was asked, but limiting the output to three decimal places was required as well. I think that can't be done with sprintf format strings alone. As Pax Diablo pointed out, string manipulation would be required.
Solution 3:
I like the answer of R. slightly tweaked:
float f = 1234.56789;
printf("%d.%.0f", f, 1000*(f-(int)f));
'1000' determines the precision.
Power to the 0.5 rounding.
EDIT
Ok, this answer was edited a few times and I lost track what I was thinking a few years back (and originally it did not fill all the criteria). So here is a new version (that fills all criteria and handles negative numbers correctly):
double f = 1234.05678900;
char s[100];
int decimals = 10;
sprintf(s,"%.*g", decimals, ((int)(pow(10, decimals)*(fabs(f) - abs((int)f)) +0.5))/pow(10,decimals));
printf("10 decimals: %d%s\n", (int)f, s+1);
And the test cases:
#import <stdio.h>
#import <stdlib.h>
#import <math.h>
int main(void){
double f = 1234.05678900;
char s[100];
int decimals;
decimals = 10;
sprintf(s,"%.*g", decimals, ((int)(pow(10, decimals)*(fabs(f) - abs((int)f)) +0.5))/pow(10,decimals));
printf("10 decimals: %d%s\n", (int)f, s+1);
decimals = 3;
sprintf(s,"%.*g", decimals, ((int)(pow(10, decimals)*(fabs(f) - abs((int)f)) +0.5))/pow(10,decimals));
printf(" 3 decimals: %d%s\n", (int)f, s+1);
f = -f;
decimals = 10;
sprintf(s,"%.*g", decimals, ((int)(pow(10, decimals)*(fabs(f) - abs((int)f)) +0.5))/pow(10,decimals));
printf(" negative 10: %d%s\n", (int)f, s+1);
decimals = 3;
sprintf(s,"%.*g", decimals, ((int)(pow(10, decimals)*(fabs(f) - abs((int)f)) +0.5))/pow(10,decimals));
printf(" negative 3: %d%s\n", (int)f, s+1);
decimals = 2;
f = 1.012;
sprintf(s,"%.*g", decimals, ((int)(pow(10, decimals)*(fabs(f) - abs((int)f)) +0.5))/pow(10,decimals));
printf(" additional : %d%s\n", (int)f, s+1);
return 0;
}
And the output of the tests:
10 decimals: 1234.056789
3 decimals: 1234.057
negative 10: -1234.056789
negative 3: -1234.057
additional : 1.01
Now, all criteria are met:
- maximum number of decimals behind the zero is fixed
- trailing zeros are removed
- it does it mathematically right (right?)
- works (now) also when first decimal is zero
Unfortunately this answer is a two-liner as sprintf does not return the string.