Objective c string formatter for distances

Question

I have a distance as a float and I'm looking for a way to format it nicely for human readers. Ideally, I'd like it to change from m to km as it gets bigger, and to round the number nicely. Converting to miles would be a bonus. I'm sure many people have had a need for one of these and I'm hoping that there's some code floating around somewhere.

Here's how I'd like the formats:

• 0-100m: 47m (as a whole number)
• 100-1000m: 325m or 320m (round to the nearest 5 or 10 meters)
• 1000-10000m: 1.2km (round to nearest with one decimal place)
• 10000m +: 21km

If there's no code available, how can I write my own formatter?

Thanks

Answer 1

Yes you need to write your own formatter, like

#include <math.h>
NSString* convertDistanceToString(float distance) {
    if (distance < 100)
       return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%g m", roundf(distance)];
    else if (distance < 1000)
       return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%g m", roundf(distance/5)*5];
    else if (distance < 10000)
       return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%g km", roundf(distance/100)/10];
    else
       return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%g km", roundf(distance/1000)];
}
...
NSLog(@"The distance is %@", convertDistanceToString(1024));

Answer 2

Here's how I do it. This uses the locale of the user to properly format the string, which you should probably do too.

// Returns a string representing the distance in the correct units.
// If distance is greater than convert max in feet or meters, 
// the distance in miles or km is returned instead
NSString* getDistString(float distance, int convertMax, BOOL includeUnit) {
  NSString * unitName;
  if (METRIC) {
    unitName = @"m";
    if (convertMax != -1 && distance > convertMax) {
      unitName = @"km";
      distance = distance / 1000;
    }
  } else {
    unitName = @"ft";
    if (convertMax != -1 && distance > convertMax) {
      unitName = @"mi";
      distance = distance / 5280;
    }
    distance = metersToFeet(distance);
  }

  if (includeUnit) return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %@", formatDecimal_1(distance), unitName];

  return formatDecimal_1(distance);

}
// returns a string if the number with one decimal place of precision
// sets the style (commas or periods) based on the locale
NSString * formatDecimal_1(float num) {
  static NSNumberFormatter *numFormatter;
  if (!numFormatter) {
    numFormatter = [[[NSNumberFormatter alloc] init] retain];
    [numFormatter setFormatterBehavior:NSNumberFormatterBehavior10_4];
    [numFormatter setLocale:[NSLocale currentLocale]];
    [numFormatter setNumberStyle:NSNumberFormatterDecimalStyle];
    [numFormatter setMaximumFractionDigits:1];
    [numFormatter setMinimumFractionDigits:1];
  }

  return [numFormatter stringFromNumber:F(num)];

}

Answer 3

found this today asking the same question....going with :

 NSString *rvalue;
    if (value > 1000) {
        rvalue = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%.02f km",value];
    }else {
        rvalue = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%.02f m",value];
    }

could wrap this in a method, if need be