Is there an easy way in .NET to get "st", "nd", "rd" and "th" endings for numbers?

Question

Hi,

I am wondering if there is a method or format string I'm missing in .NET to convert the following:

   1 to 1st
   2 to 2nd
   3 to 3rd
   4 to 4th
  11 to 11th
 101 to 101st
 111 to 111th

This link has a bad example of the basic principle involved in writing your own function, but I am more curious if there is an inbuilt capacity I'm missing.

Solution

Scott Hanselman's answer is the accepted one because it answers the question directly.

For a solution however, see this great answer.

Answer 1

No, there is no inbuilt capability in the .NET Base Class Library.

Answer 2

It's a function which is a lot simpler than you think. Though there might be a .NET function already in existence for this, the following function (written in PHP) does the job. It shouldn't be too hard to port it over.

function ordinal($num) {
    $ones = $num % 10;
    $tens = floor($num / 10) % 10;
    if ($tens == 1) {
        $suff = "th";
    } else {
        switch ($ones) {
            case 1 : $suff = "st"; break;
            case 2 : $suff = "nd"; break;
            case 3 : $suff = "rd"; break;
            default : $suff = "th";
        }
    }
    return $num . $suff;
}

Answer 3

This has already been covered but I'm unsure how to link to it. Here is the code snippit:

 public static string Ordinal(this int number)
 {
  var ones = number % 10;
  var tens = Math.Floor (number / 10f) % 10;
  if (tens == 1)
  {
   return number + "th";
  }

  switch (number % 10)
  {
   case 1: return number + "st";
   case 2: return number + "nd";
   case 3: return number + "rd";
   default: return number + "th";
  }
 }

FYI: This is as an extension method. If your .NET version is less than 3.5 just remove the this keyword

[EDIT]: Thanks for pointing that it was incorrect, that's what you get for copy / pasting code :)

Answer 4

I think the ordinal suffix is hard to get... you basically have to write a function that uses a switch to test the numbers and add the suffix.

There's no reason for a language to provide this internally, especially when it's locale specific.

You can do a bit better than that link when it comes to the amount of code to write, but you have to code a function for this...

Answer 5

@nickf: Here is the PHP function in C#:

public static string Ordinal(int number)
{
 string suffix = String.Empty;

 int ones = number % 10;
 int tens = (int)Math.Floor(number / 10M) % 10;

 if (tens == 1)
 {
  suffix = "th";
 }
 else
 {
  switch (ones)
  {
   case 1:
    suffix = "st";
    break;

   case 2:
    suffix = "nd";
    break;

   case 3:
    suffix = "rd";
    break;

   default:
    suffix = "th";
    break;
  }
 }
 return String.Format("{0}{1}", number, suffix);
}

Answer 6

This has already been asked, and answered:

Ordinals in C#

Answer 7

else if (choice=='q') {qtr++;

                   switch (qtr)
                  {  case(2): strcpy(qtrs,"nd");break;
                     case(3): {strcpy(qtrs,"rd");
                               cout<<"End of First Half!!!";
                               cout<<" hteam "<<"["<<hteam<<"] "<<hs;
                               cout<<" vteam "<<" ["<<vteam;
                               cout<<"] ";
                               cout<<vs;dwn=1;yd=10;

                               if (beginp=='H') team='V';
                               else             team='H';
                               break;
                               }
                   case(4): strcpy(qtrs,"th");break;

Answer 8

Here's a Microsoft SQL Server Function version:

CREATE FUNCTION [Internal].[GetNumberAsOrdinalString]
(
    @num int
)
RETURNS nvarchar(max)
AS
BEGIN

    DECLARE @Suffix nvarchar(2);
    DECLARE @Ones int;  
    DECLARE @Tens int;

    SET @Ones = @num % 10;
    SET @Tens = FLOOR(@num / 10) % 10;

    IF @Tens = 1
    BEGIN
        SET @Suffix = 'th';
    END
    ELSE
    BEGIN

    SET @Suffix = 
        CASE @Ones
            WHEN 1 THEN 'st'
            WHEN 2 THEN 'nd'
            WHEN 3 THEN 'rd'
            ELSE 'th'
        END
    END

    RETURN CONVERT(nvarchar(max), @num) + @Suffix;
END