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Converting numbers into English

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  • L Lost User

    What I would ask myself is: Why did you re-invent the wheel? Was this good value for money for your employer? There are many many solutions available to do this (for free) on the interwebs. Why did it need to be 'terse and fast' - surely better to be 'easily readable, debuggable and maintainable'?

    MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

    M Offline
    M Offline
    Member_5893260
    wrote on last edited by
    #13

    Because I felt like it. And I am my employer, so it was excellent value!

    L 1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

      PIEBALDconsult wrote:

      Shows lack of clarity of thought

      Or simple ignorance.

      The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.

      M Offline
      M Offline
      Member_5893260
      wrote on last edited by
      #14

      Or casting pearls before swine.

      Richard Andrew x64R 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • M Member_5893260

        Or casting pearls before swine.

        Richard Andrew x64R Offline
        Richard Andrew x64R Offline
        Richard Andrew x64
        wrote on last edited by
        #15

        :confused:

        The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.

        G 1 Reply Last reply
        0
        • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

          PIEBALDconsult wrote:

          Shows lack of clarity of thought

          Or simple ignorance.

          The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.

          P Offline
          P Offline
          PIEBALDconsult
          wrote on last edited by
          #16

          If he were doing VB I'd agree.

          1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • M Member_5893260

            Because I felt like it. And I am my employer, so it was excellent value!

            L Offline
            L Offline
            Lost User
            wrote on last edited by
            #17

            As a purely fun exercise it's the kind of thing I enjoy doing; I don't think it was good financial value regardless as to who the employer was - although keeping the staff happy is equally important ;)

            MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

            M 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • M Member_5893260

              So I've been enjoying myself at work today: I wrote something to take a number and convert it into English, e.g. "12324.56" becomes "twelve thousand, three hundred and twenty-four point five six". I know this is an old problem: I remember having done this something like 30 years ago, as part of a computer science class, but I actually needed it for something today: in doing it, I was amazed at how many ways there are to achieve it in C# (the last time I wrote it, it was in Algol-60!), and how many little optimizations I was able to add as I sat there looking at each iteration of the code. I ended up trying to keep the code as terse as I could but also as fast as I could, without having too many IFs and things all over the place. I ended up using a bunch of enums and letting the runtime make words out of them, rather than having strings for it: I'm not sure it makes a huge difference, but it just seemed more elegant, somehow. Of course, in a problem like this, there's always the part about trying to stop it saying things like, "two thousand, zero hundred and onety-zero", so part of the fun was trying not to write anything too specific to avoid things like that: in my mind, if I got the algorithm right, that stuff would just sort of work... It's nice having a bit of time on one's hands at work, for a change. Anyway, I had a lot of fun, so I thought I'd share: if anyone else has a better method (and I'm sure they do) then why not join in...? Meanwhile, here's my version:

              public static class Numeric
              {
              private enum Digit
              {
              zero = 0, one = 1, two = 2, three = 3, four = 4,
              five = 5, six = 6, seven = 7, eight = 8, nine = 9
              }

              private enum Teen
              {
              ten = 10, eleven = 11, twelve = 12, thirteen = 13, fourteen = 14,
              fifteen = 15, sixteen = 16, seventeen = 17, eighteen = 18, nineteen = 19
              }

              private enum Ten
              {
              twenty = 2, thirty = 3, forty = 4, fifty = 5,
              sixty = 6, seventy = 7, eighty = 8, ninety = 9
              }

              private enum PowerOfTen
              {
              hundred = 0, thousand = 1, million = 2, billion = 3,
              trillion = 4, quadrillion = 5, quintillion = 6
              }

              /// /// How many powers of ten there are; faster to work this out ahead of time,
              /// and I didn't want to hard-code it into the algorithm...
              ///
              private static int PowersOfTen = Enum.GetValues(typeof(PowerOfTen)).Length;

              /// /// Converts a number to English words
              ///
              /// The number

              P Offline
              P Offline
              PIEBALDconsult
              wrote on last edited by
              #18

              P.S. Maybe look into using a StringBuilder It's too early for a Friday Programming Quiz.

              1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • L Lost User

                As a purely fun exercise it's the kind of thing I enjoy doing; I don't think it was good financial value regardless as to who the employer was - although keeping the staff happy is equally important ;)

                MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

                M Offline
                M Offline
                Member_5893260
                wrote on last edited by
                #19

                Oh, yeah - I wouldn't bother unless I had a slow day: in this case, I did - it was purely for fun.

                L 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • P PIEBALDconsult

                  Needless really, it just wraps the Parse routines you should be using. Extra calls on the stack. Shows lack of clarity of thought.

                  M Offline
                  M Offline
                  Member_5893260
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #20

                  A parser isn't really applicable here: you can't exactly parse a string of digits into English...

                  P 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • M Member_5893260

                    Oh, yeah - I wouldn't bother unless I had a slow day: in this case, I did - it was purely for fun.

                    L Offline
                    L Offline
                    Lost User
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #21

                    You had to go no further than our very own CP[^] or I stole this from StuckOverflow...

                    public static string NumberToWords(int number)
                    {
                    if (number == 0)
                    return "zero";

                    if (number < 0)
                        return "minus " + NumberToWords(Math.Abs(number));
                    
                    string words = "";
                    
                    if ((number / 1000000) > 0)
                    {
                        words += NumberToWords(number / 1000000) + " million ";
                        number %= 1000000;
                    }
                    
                    if ((number / 1000) > 0)
                    {
                        words += NumberToWords(number / 1000) + " thousand ";
                        number %= 1000;
                    }
                    
                    if ((number / 100) > 0)
                    {
                        words += NumberToWords(number / 100) + " hundred ";
                        number %= 100;
                    }
                    
                    if (number > 0)
                    {
                        if (words != "")
                            words += "and ";
                    
                        var unitsMap = new\[\] { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine", "ten", "eleven", "twelve", "thirteen", "fourteen", "fifteen", "sixteen", "seventeen", "eighteen", "nineteen" };
                        var tensMap = new\[\] { "zero", "ten", "twenty", "thirty", "forty", "fifty", "sixty", "seventy", "eighty", "ninety" };
                    
                        if (number < 20)
                            words += unitsMap\[number\];
                        else
                        {
                            words += tensMap\[number / 10\];
                            if ((number % 10) > 0)
                                words += "-" + unitsMap\[number % 10\];
                        }
                    }
                    
                    return words;
                    

                    }

                    MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

                    M P 2 Replies Last reply
                    0
                    • M Member_5893260

                      So I've been enjoying myself at work today: I wrote something to take a number and convert it into English, e.g. "12324.56" becomes "twelve thousand, three hundred and twenty-four point five six". I know this is an old problem: I remember having done this something like 30 years ago, as part of a computer science class, but I actually needed it for something today: in doing it, I was amazed at how many ways there are to achieve it in C# (the last time I wrote it, it was in Algol-60!), and how many little optimizations I was able to add as I sat there looking at each iteration of the code. I ended up trying to keep the code as terse as I could but also as fast as I could, without having too many IFs and things all over the place. I ended up using a bunch of enums and letting the runtime make words out of them, rather than having strings for it: I'm not sure it makes a huge difference, but it just seemed more elegant, somehow. Of course, in a problem like this, there's always the part about trying to stop it saying things like, "two thousand, zero hundred and onety-zero", so part of the fun was trying not to write anything too specific to avoid things like that: in my mind, if I got the algorithm right, that stuff would just sort of work... It's nice having a bit of time on one's hands at work, for a change. Anyway, I had a lot of fun, so I thought I'd share: if anyone else has a better method (and I'm sure they do) then why not join in...? Meanwhile, here's my version:

                      public static class Numeric
                      {
                      private enum Digit
                      {
                      zero = 0, one = 1, two = 2, three = 3, four = 4,
                      five = 5, six = 6, seven = 7, eight = 8, nine = 9
                      }

                      private enum Teen
                      {
                      ten = 10, eleven = 11, twelve = 12, thirteen = 13, fourteen = 14,
                      fifteen = 15, sixteen = 16, seventeen = 17, eighteen = 18, nineteen = 19
                      }

                      private enum Ten
                      {
                      twenty = 2, thirty = 3, forty = 4, fifty = 5,
                      sixty = 6, seventy = 7, eighty = 8, ninety = 9
                      }

                      private enum PowerOfTen
                      {
                      hundred = 0, thousand = 1, million = 2, billion = 3,
                      trillion = 4, quadrillion = 5, quintillion = 6
                      }

                      /// /// How many powers of ten there are; faster to work this out ahead of time,
                      /// and I didn't want to hard-code it into the algorithm...
                      ///
                      private static int PowersOfTen = Enum.GetValues(typeof(PowerOfTen)).Length;

                      /// /// Converts a number to English words
                      ///
                      /// The number

                      M Offline
                      M Offline
                      Mark_Wallace
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #22

                      Oh oh, that's not how you do phone numbers.

                      I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

                      M P 2 Replies Last reply
                      0
                      • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

                        :confused:

                        The difficult we do right away... ...the impossible takes slightly longer.

                        G Offline
                        G Offline
                        Garth J Lancaster
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #23

                        I think maybe he didnt care about the difference I think if I'd been starting out trying to do this I might have started the same way - expecting beginners in C# (ie me) to know why you wouldnt use convert, vs parse is probably not so important as getting the job done - make it work, then make it pretty. Maybe in a test case I'd have found out about how Convert handles (cough) nulls in input and gone 'hmmm, that'll need to change' - not sure the speed difference would be noticeble in the areas - batch processing - that I'd be using it 'g'

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • M Member_5893260

                          So I've been enjoying myself at work today: I wrote something to take a number and convert it into English, e.g. "12324.56" becomes "twelve thousand, three hundred and twenty-four point five six". I know this is an old problem: I remember having done this something like 30 years ago, as part of a computer science class, but I actually needed it for something today: in doing it, I was amazed at how many ways there are to achieve it in C# (the last time I wrote it, it was in Algol-60!), and how many little optimizations I was able to add as I sat there looking at each iteration of the code. I ended up trying to keep the code as terse as I could but also as fast as I could, without having too many IFs and things all over the place. I ended up using a bunch of enums and letting the runtime make words out of them, rather than having strings for it: I'm not sure it makes a huge difference, but it just seemed more elegant, somehow. Of course, in a problem like this, there's always the part about trying to stop it saying things like, "two thousand, zero hundred and onety-zero", so part of the fun was trying not to write anything too specific to avoid things like that: in my mind, if I got the algorithm right, that stuff would just sort of work... It's nice having a bit of time on one's hands at work, for a change. Anyway, I had a lot of fun, so I thought I'd share: if anyone else has a better method (and I'm sure they do) then why not join in...? Meanwhile, here's my version:

                          public static class Numeric
                          {
                          private enum Digit
                          {
                          zero = 0, one = 1, two = 2, three = 3, four = 4,
                          five = 5, six = 6, seven = 7, eight = 8, nine = 9
                          }

                          private enum Teen
                          {
                          ten = 10, eleven = 11, twelve = 12, thirteen = 13, fourteen = 14,
                          fifteen = 15, sixteen = 16, seventeen = 17, eighteen = 18, nineteen = 19
                          }

                          private enum Ten
                          {
                          twenty = 2, thirty = 3, forty = 4, fifty = 5,
                          sixty = 6, seventy = 7, eighty = 8, ninety = 9
                          }

                          private enum PowerOfTen
                          {
                          hundred = 0, thousand = 1, million = 2, billion = 3,
                          trillion = 4, quadrillion = 5, quintillion = 6
                          }

                          /// /// How many powers of ten there are; faster to work this out ahead of time,
                          /// and I didn't want to hard-code it into the algorithm...
                          ///
                          private static int PowersOfTen = Enum.GetValues(typeof(PowerOfTen)).Length;

                          /// /// Converts a number to English words
                          ///
                          /// The number

                          N Offline
                          N Offline
                          NormDroid
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #24

                          How about to roman numerals ;)

                          Software Kinetics - Dependable Software news

                          M P 2 Replies Last reply
                          0
                          • L Lost User

                            What I would ask myself is: Why did you re-invent the wheel? Was this good value for money for your employer? There are many many solutions available to do this (for free) on the interwebs. Why did it need to be 'terse and fast' - surely better to be 'easily readable, debuggable and maintainable'?

                            MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

                            M Offline
                            M Offline
                            Marc A Brown
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #25

                            1. Why not? 2. To learn the language. Beats the heck out of "Hello World". 3. For the same reason people draw doodles. 4. Why not? :)

                            M L 2 Replies Last reply
                            0
                            • N NormDroid

                              How about to roman numerals ;)

                              Software Kinetics - Dependable Software news

                              M Offline
                              M Offline
                              Member_5893260
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #26

                              Oh, yeah - that's fun - actually quite difficult!

                              P 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • M Mark_Wallace

                                Oh oh, that's not how you do phone numbers.

                                I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

                                M Offline
                                M Offline
                                Member_5893260
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #27

                                ROFL!

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • L Lost User

                                  You had to go no further than our very own CP[^] or I stole this from StuckOverflow...

                                  public static string NumberToWords(int number)
                                  {
                                  if (number == 0)
                                  return "zero";

                                  if (number < 0)
                                      return "minus " + NumberToWords(Math.Abs(number));
                                  
                                  string words = "";
                                  
                                  if ((number / 1000000) > 0)
                                  {
                                      words += NumberToWords(number / 1000000) + " million ";
                                      number %= 1000000;
                                  }
                                  
                                  if ((number / 1000) > 0)
                                  {
                                      words += NumberToWords(number / 1000) + " thousand ";
                                      number %= 1000;
                                  }
                                  
                                  if ((number / 100) > 0)
                                  {
                                      words += NumberToWords(number / 100) + " hundred ";
                                      number %= 100;
                                  }
                                  
                                  if (number > 0)
                                  {
                                      if (words != "")
                                          words += "and ";
                                  
                                      var unitsMap = new\[\] { "zero", "one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine", "ten", "eleven", "twelve", "thirteen", "fourteen", "fifteen", "sixteen", "seventeen", "eighteen", "nineteen" };
                                      var tensMap = new\[\] { "zero", "ten", "twenty", "thirty", "forty", "fifty", "sixty", "seventy", "eighty", "ninety" };
                                  
                                      if (number < 20)
                                          words += unitsMap\[number\];
                                      else
                                      {
                                          words += tensMap\[number / 10\];
                                          if ((number % 10) > 0)
                                              words += "-" + unitsMap\[number % 10\];
                                      }
                                  }
                                  
                                  return words;
                                  

                                  }

                                  MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

                                  M Offline
                                  M Offline
                                  Member_5893260
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #28

                                  Yeah - I thought about doing it that way but it wasn't fun to write! I'm sure I overcomplicated it, but - whatever - I had fun!

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • M Marc A Brown

                                    1. Why not? 2. To learn the language. Beats the heck out of "Hello World". 3. For the same reason people draw doodles. 4. Why not? :)

                                    M Offline
                                    M Offline
                                    Member_5893260
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #29

                                    That's it - it's a doodle!

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • L Lost User

                                      mark merrens wrote:

                                      Curmudgeonprofessional

                                      ftfy

                                      MVVM # - I did it My Way ___________________________________________ Man, you're a god. - walterhevedeich 26/05/2011 .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

                                      R Offline
                                      R Offline
                                      R Giskard Reventlov
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #30

                                      _Maxxx_ wrote:

                                      Curmudgeonprofessional

                                      Pompous ass. That should do it.

                                      "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures

                                      M L 2 Replies Last reply
                                      0
                                      • M Member_5893260

                                        Really? Convert's slow? Thanks!

                                        J Offline
                                        J Offline
                                        jschell
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #31

                                        Dan Sutton wrote:

                                        Really? Convert's slow? Thanks!

                                        Good luck ever finding a real application where that has even a measurable impact on performance though.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • M Member_5893260

                                          A parser isn't really applicable here: you can't exactly parse a string of digits into English...

                                          P Offline
                                          P Offline
                                          PIEBALDconsult
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #32

                                          Convert.ToInt32(N % p); Use a cast. There is only one useful method in Convert -- ChangeType. For all other uses for Convert, there are better alternatives.

                                          M 1 Reply Last reply
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