Converting c++ printf formatting to/from VB .NET string formatting

Question

I have some VB .NET software that interfaces to a load of old (but sound) COM objects. The VB provides a GUI for the COM objects, part of which consists of setting various options on the COM objects - several of which relate to string formatting.

I have a simple pair of VB .NET functions that convert basic %f, %d, %g formats to/from .NET equivalents using a large select case covering specific common strings, but they don't cover all formats. This is the kind of thing I have...

        ElseIf f = "%.3f" Then
            return "0.000"
        ElseIf f = "%.2f" Then
            return "0.00"
        ElseIf f = "%.1f" Then
            return "0.0"

Before I start diving in and making it more versatile with some parsing, does anyone know of a class (eg VB or C# .NET) that provides a decent ready-made implementation? Or perhaps some regexp wizadry could be used?

Many thanks

Tim

Answer 1

Do you really need both formats, or is one format adopted by your users and the other is used inside the implementation details of your software -- but could go away if you had string formatting functions that recognized your users' options directly?

Answer 2

You don't need to. Windows has that formatting built-in. You can simply P/Invoke wsprintf from User32.dll.