Is NSNumberFormatter the only way to format an NSDecimalNumber?

Question

I\'m using an NSDecimalNumber to store money in Core Data. I naively used stringWithFormat: at first to format the value, later realizing that it didn\'t support NSDecimalNu

Answer 1

Just convert it to a double and use "F"

[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%1.2F", [ent doubleValue]];

Answer 2

on iOS 4.0 and later you can use this method:

NSString* currencyString = [NSNumberFormatter 
                                 localizedStringFromNumber:number
                                 numberStyle:NSNumberFormatterCurrencyStyle];

Answer 3

There's nothing wrong with that approach, and it's the conventional pattern to convert opaque number classes to strings.

If I have a UIView that uses a formatter often, I'll usually have one as an instance member so I avoid having to repeatedly alloc/init/release the formatter.

Answer 4

NSNumberFormatter can be expensive, why not just call [ent descriptionWithLocale:]