How can I convert an int
datatype into a string
datatype in C#?
11 Answers
Just in case you want the binary representation and you're still drunk from last night's party:
private static string ByteToString(int value)
{
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(sizeof(byte) * 8);
BitArray[] bitArrays = BitConverter.GetBytes(value).Reverse().Select(b => new BitArray(new []{b})).ToArray();
foreach (bool bit in bitArrays.SelectMany(bitArray => bitArray.Cast<bool>().Reverse()))
{
builder.Append(bit ? '1' : '0');
}
return builder.ToString();
}
Note: Something about not handling endianness very nicely...
If you don't mind sacrificing a bit of memory for speed, you can use below to generate an array with pre-calculated string values:
static void OutputIntegerStringRepresentations()
{
Console.WriteLine("private static string[] integerAsDecimal = new [] {");
for (int i = int.MinValue; i < int.MaxValue; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine("\t\"{0}\",", i);
}
Console.WriteLine("\t\"{0}\"", int.MaxValue);
Console.WriteLine("}");
}
Further on to @Xavier's response, here's a page that does speed comparisons between several different ways to do the conversion from 100 iterations up to 21,474,836 iterations.
It seems pretty much a tie between:
int someInt = 0;
someInt.ToString(); //this was fastest half the time
//and
Convert.ToString(someInt); //this was the fastest the other half the time
None of the answers mentioned that the ToString()
method can be applied to integer expressions
Debug.Assert((1000*1000).ToString()=="1000000");
even to integer literals
Debug.Assert(256.ToString("X")=="100");
Although integer literals like this are often considered to be bad coding style (magic numbers) there may be cases where this feature is useful...