How do I get a human-readable file size in bytes abbreviation using .NET?

Example: Take input 7,326,629 and display 6.98 MB

Solution 1:

This may not the most efficient or optimized way to do it, but it's easier to read if you are not familiar with log maths, and should be fast enough for most scenarios.

string[] sizes = { "B", "KB", "MB", "GB", "TB" };
double len = new FileInfo(filename).Length;
int order = 0;
while (len >= 1024 && order < sizes.Length - 1) {
    order++;
    len = len/1024;
}

// Adjust the format string to your preferences. For example "{0:0.#}{1}" would
// show a single decimal place, and no space.
string result = String.Format("{0:0.##} {1}", len, sizes[order]);

Solution 2:

using Log to solve the problem....

static String BytesToString(long byteCount)
{
    string[] suf = { "B", "KB", "MB", "GB", "TB", "PB", "EB" }; //Longs run out around EB
    if (byteCount == 0)
        return "0" + suf[0];
    long bytes = Math.Abs(byteCount);
    int place = Convert.ToInt32(Math.Floor(Math.Log(bytes, 1024)));
    double num = Math.Round(bytes / Math.Pow(1024, place), 1);
    return (Math.Sign(byteCount) * num).ToString() + suf[place];
}

Also in C#, but should be a snap to convert. Also I rounded to 1 decimal place for readability.

Basically determine the number of decimal places in Base 1024 and then divide by 1024^decimalplaces.

And some samples of use and output:

Console.WriteLine(BytesToString(9223372036854775807));  //Results in 8EB
Console.WriteLine(BytesToString(0));                    //Results in 0B
Console.WriteLine(BytesToString(1024));                 //Results in 1KB
Console.WriteLine(BytesToString(2000000));              //Results in 1.9MB
Console.WriteLine(BytesToString(-9023372036854775807)); //Results in -7.8EB

Edit:
Was pointed out that I missed a Math.Floor, so I incorporated it. (Convert.ToInt32 uses rounding, not truncating and that's why Floor is necessary.) Thanks for the catch.

Edit2:
There were a couple of comments about negative sizes and 0 byte sizes, so I updated to handle those cases.

Solution 3:

A tested and significantly optimized version of the requested function is posted here:

C# Human Readable File Size - Optimized Function

Source code:

// Returns the human-readable file size for an arbitrary, 64-bit file size 
// The default format is "0.### XB", e.g. "4.2 KB" or "1.434 GB"
public string GetBytesReadable(long i)
{
    // Get absolute value
    long absolute_i = (i < 0 ? -i : i);
    // Determine the suffix and readable value
    string suffix;
    double readable;
    if (absolute_i >= 0x1000000000000000) // Exabyte
    {
        suffix = "EB";
        readable = (i >> 50);
    }
    else if (absolute_i >= 0x4000000000000) // Petabyte
    {
        suffix = "PB";
        readable = (i >> 40);
    }
    else if (absolute_i >= 0x10000000000) // Terabyte
    {
        suffix = "TB";
        readable = (i >> 30);
    }
    else if (absolute_i >= 0x40000000) // Gigabyte
    {
        suffix = "GB";
        readable = (i >> 20);
    }
    else if (absolute_i >= 0x100000) // Megabyte
    {
        suffix = "MB";
        readable = (i >> 10);
    }
    else if (absolute_i >= 0x400) // Kilobyte
    {
        suffix = "KB";
        readable = i;
    }
    else
    {
        return i.ToString("0 B"); // Byte
    }
    // Divide by 1024 to get fractional value
    readable = (readable / 1024);
    // Return formatted number with suffix
    return readable.ToString("0.### ") + suffix;
}

Solution 4:

[DllImport ( "Shlwapi.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto )]
public static extern long StrFormatByteSize ( 
        long fileSize
        , [MarshalAs ( UnmanagedType.LPTStr )] StringBuilder buffer
        , int bufferSize );


/// <summary>
/// Converts a numeric value into a string that represents the number expressed as a size value in bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes, depending on the size.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="filelength">The numeric value to be converted.</param>
/// <returns>the converted string</returns>
public static string StrFormatByteSize (long filesize) {
     StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder( 11 );
     StrFormatByteSize( filesize, sb, sb.Capacity );
     return sb.ToString();
}

From: http://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/shlwapi/StrFormatByteSize.html

Solution 5:

Checkout the ByteSize library. It's the System.TimeSpan for bytes!

It handles the conversion and formatting for you.

var maxFileSize = ByteSize.FromKiloBytes(10);
maxFileSize.Bytes;
maxFileSize.MegaBytes;
maxFileSize.GigaBytes;

It also does string representation and parsing.

// ToString
ByteSize.FromKiloBytes(1024).ToString(); // 1 MB
ByteSize.FromGigabytes(.5).ToString();   // 512 MB
ByteSize.FromGigabytes(1024).ToString(); // 1 TB

// Parsing
ByteSize.Parse("5b");
ByteSize.Parse("1.55B");