Formatting Large Numbers with .NET

Question

I have a requirement to format large numbers like 4,316,000 as "4.3m".

How can I do this in C#?

Answer 1

You can use Log10 to determine the correct break. Something like this could work:

double number = 4316000;

int mag = (int)(Math.Floor(Math.Log10(number))/3); // Truncates to 6, divides to 2
double divisor = Math.Pow(10, mag*3);

double shortNumber = number / divisor;

string suffix;
switch(mag)
{
    case 0:
        suffix = string.Empty;
        break;
    case 1:
        suffix = "k";
        break;
    case 2:
        suffix = "m";
        break;
    case 3:
        suffix = "b";
        break;
}
string result = shortNumber.ToString("N1") + suffix; // 4.3m