Precision String Format Specifier In Swift

Question

Below is how I would have previously truncated a float to two decimal places

NSLog(@\" %.02f %.02f %.02f\", r, g, b);

I checked the docs an

Answer 1

@infix func ^(left:Double, right: Int) -> NSNumber {
    let nf = NSNumberFormatter()
    nf.maximumSignificantDigits = Int(right)
    return  nf.numberFromString(nf.stringFromNumber(left))
}


let r = 0.52264
let g = 0.22643
let b = 0.94837

println("this is a color: \(r^3) \(g^3) \(b^3)")

// this is a color: 0.523 0.226 0.948

Answer 2

Power of extension

extension Double {
    var asNumber:String {
        if self >= 0 {
            var formatter = NSNumberFormatter()
            formatter.numberStyle = .NoStyle
            formatter.percentSymbol = ""
            formatter.maximumFractionDigits = 1
            return "\(formatter.stringFromNumber(self)!)"
        }
        return ""
    }
}

let velocity:Float = 12.32982342034

println("The velocity is \(velocity.toNumber)")

Output: The velocity is 12.3

Answer 3

Most answers here are valid. However, in case you will format the number often, consider extending the Float class to add a method that returns a formatted string. See example code below. This one achieves the same goal by using a number formatter and extension.

extension Float {
    func string(fractionDigits:Int) -> String {
        let formatter = NSNumberFormatter()
        formatter.minimumFractionDigits = fractionDigits
        formatter.maximumFractionDigits = fractionDigits
        return formatter.stringFromNumber(self) ?? "\(self)"
    }
}

let myVelocity:Float = 12.32982342034

println("The velocity is \(myVelocity.string(2))")
println("The velocity is \(myVelocity.string(1))")

The console shows:

The velocity is 12.33
The velocity is 12.3

SWIFT 3.1 update

extension Float {
    func string(fractionDigits:Int) -> String {
        let formatter = NumberFormatter()
        formatter.minimumFractionDigits = fractionDigits
        formatter.maximumFractionDigits = fractionDigits
        return formatter.string(from: NSNumber(value: self)) ?? "\(self)"
    }
}

Answer 4

You can't do it (yet) with string interpolation. Your best bet is still going to be NSString formatting:

println(NSString(format:"%.2f", sqrt(2.0)))

Extrapolating from python, it seems like a reasonable syntax might be:

@infix func % (value:Double, format:String) -> String {
    return NSString(format:format, value)
}

Which then allows you to use them as:

M_PI % "%5.3f"                // "3.142"

You can define similar operators for all of the numeric types, unfortunately I haven't found a way to do it with generics.

Swift 5 Update

As of at least Swift 5, String directly supports the format: initializer, so there's no need to use NSString and the @infix attribute is no longer needed which means the samples above should be written as:

println(String(format:"%.2f", sqrt(2.0)))

func %(value:Double, format:String) -> String {
    return String(format:format, value)
}

Double.pi % "%5.3f"         // "3.142"

Answer 5

import Foundation

extension CGFloat {
    var string1: String {
        return String(format: "%.1f", self)
    }
    var string2: String {
        return String(format: "%.2f", self)
    }
}

Usage

let offset = CGPoint(1.23, 4.56)
print("offset: \(offset.x.string1) x \(offset.y.string1)")
// offset: 1.2 x 4.6

Answer 6

//It will more help, by specify how much decimal Point you want.
let decimalPoint = 2
let floatAmount = 1.10001
let amountValue = String(format: "%0.*f", decimalPoint, floatAmount)