R / Sweave formatting numbers with \Sexpr{} in scientific notation

Question

I am just starting to write some documents with Sweave/R and I like the \\sexpr{} command that lets one tow write numbers directly within text.

Answer 1

I think this function should work:

sn <- function(x,digits)
{
  if (x==0) return("0")
  ord <- floor(log(abs(x),10))
  x <- x / 10^ord
  if (!missing(digits)) x <- format(x,digits=digits)
  if (ord==0) return(as.character(x))
  return(paste(x,"\\\\times 10^{",ord,"}",sep=""))
}

Some tests:

> sn(2000000)
[1] "2\\\\times 10^{6}"
> sn(0.001)
[1] "1\\\\times 10^{-3}"
> sn(0.00005)
[1] "5\\\\times 10^{-5}"
> sn(10.1203)
[1] "1.01203\\\\times 10^{1}"
> sn(-0.00013)
[1] "-1.3\\\\times 10^{-4}"
> sn(0)
[1] "0"

If you want the result in math mode you could enter $ signs in the paste() call.

Edit:

Here is a Sweave example:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}
<>= 
sn <- function(x,digits)
{
  if (x==0) return("0")
  ord <- floor(log(abs(x),10))
  x <- x / 10^ord
  if (!missing(digits)) x <- format(x,digits=digits)
  if (ord==0) return(as.character(x))
  return(paste(x,"\\\\times 10^{",ord,"}",sep=""))
}
@

Blablabla this is a pretty formatted number $\Sexpr{sn(0.00134,2)}$.

\end{document}