How do I parse a string number into a float with four decimal places?

[Phil Mc]

OK this should be bread and butter, easy to do, but I seem to be going
around in circles and not getting any answer to achieving this simple
task.

I have numbers in string format (they are coming in from an excel
sheet):
Examples.
45,666.0041
5664456.12
-5465.25568 ETC

I need to format this into a specified number of decimal places without
affecting anything else.

When I require 2 decimal places, this seams to work:

this.plotPoint =
float.Parse(String.Format("{0:F2}",row[fundReturnColumn]));

BUT when I want 4 decmail places:

this.plotPoint =
float.Parse(String.Format("{0:F4}",row[fundReturnColumn]));

I still get 2??????


I am sure that there is a simple explanation, but its driving me mad.}

 

[Rick Lones]

I think that your input strings specify too high a precision to fit a float.
With a single-precision float you could get at most 7 significant digits but,
for example, your first string has 9 significant digits. So I would suggest to
try parsing them into doubles instead.

HTH,
-rick-

 

[Mark Rae]

this.plotPoint =
float.Parse(String.Format("{0:F4}",row[fundReturnColumn]));

this.plotPoint = float.Parse(row[fundReturnColumn]).ToString("#,##0.0000");

 

[Phil Mc]

Hi thanks for the input.

Unfortunately I'm getting a error on ToString with only one argument

":No overload for method 'ToString' takes '1' arguments"

The way that I have got around this is to simply parse the string and
not convert to a number. I then use the string number in my sql
statement.


string numStr = String.Format(row[plotPointColumn].ToString().Trim());
numStr = String.Format("{0:0.0000}", numStr).Replace(",", "");

Not ideal, but getting the job done.

I would like to get to the bottom of the problem if anyone has any
ideas.
Thanks again for your help....

 

[Rick Lones]

I'm certainly not sure why unless it has to do with the data type of
"this.plotPoint", which you do not disclose. The following works for me on .Net
1.1 - is it not pretty close to what you are trying to do?

using System;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
class Class1
{
[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
double d1, d2, d3;
string s1 = "45,666.0041";
string s2 = "5664456.12";
string s3 = "-5465.25568";
d1 = double.Parse(s1);
d2 = double.Parse(s2);
d3 = double.Parse(s3);
Console.WriteLine("{0}, {1}, {2}", new object[]{f1.ToString("#,0.0000"),

f2.ToString("#,0.0000"), f3.ToString("#,0.0000")});
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}

Note that this does not work so well if you change "double" to "float" . . .

-rick-