Use printf to format floats without decimal places if only trailing 0s

Question

Is it possible to format a float in C to only show up to 2 decimal places if different from 0s using printf?

Ex:

12 => 12

12.1 => 12.1

12.12

Answer 1

From our discussion in the above answer here is my program that works for any number of digits before the decimal.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

int main() {
    float f1 = 12.13;
    float f2 = 12.245;
    float f3 = 1242.145;
    float f4 = 1214.1;

    int i = 0;
    char *s1 = (char *)(malloc(sizeof(char) * 20));
    char *s2 = (char *)(malloc(sizeof(char) * 20));

    sprintf(s1, "%f", f1);
    s2 = strchr(s1, '.');
    i = s2 - s1;
    printf("%.*g\n", (i+2), f1);

    sprintf(s1, "%f", f2);
    s2 = strchr(s1, '.');
    i = s2 - s1;
    printf("%.*g\n", (i+2), f2);

    sprintf(s1, "%f", f3);
    s2 = strchr(s1, '.');
    i = s2 - s1;
    printf("%.*g\n", (i+2), f3);

    sprintf(s1, "%f", f4);
    s2 = strchr(s1, '.');
    i = s2 - s1;
    printf("%.*g\n", (i+2), f4);

    free(s1);
    free(s2);

    return 0;
}

And here's the output

12.13
12.24
1242.15
1214.1

Answer 2

For what it's worth, here's a simple ObjC implementation:

// Usage for Output   1 — 1.23
[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ — %@", [self stringWithFloat:1], 
                                       [self stringWithFloat:1.234];

// Checks if it's an int and if not displays 2 decimals.
+ (NSString*)stringWithFloat:(CGFloat)_float
{
    NSString *format = (NSInteger)_float == _float ? @"%.0f" : @"%.2f";
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:format, _float];
}

%g wasn't doing it for me — this one yes :-) Hope it's useful to some of you.

Answer 3

You can use the %g format specifier:

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  float f1 = 12;
  float f2 = 12.1;
  float f3 = 12.12;
  float f4 = 12.1234;
  printf("%g\n", f1);
  printf("%g\n", f2);
  printf("%g\n", f3);
  printf("%g\n", f4);
  return 0;
}

Result:

12
12.1
12.12
12.1234

Note that, unlike the f format specifier, if you specify a number before the g it refers to the length of the entire number (not the number of decimal places as with f).