[FIXED] How to format a decimal without trailing zeros

Issue

I've just learned that a decimal somehow remembers how much trailaing zero's were needed to store a number. With other words: it remembers the size of the fraction.

For example:

123M.ToString() ==> resuls in: 123
123.00M.ToString() ==> resuls in: 123.00
123.450M.ToString() ==> resuls in: 123.450

I am looking for a formatting string or another trick to get rid of those "unneeded" trailing zeros, but keeping the significant digits. So:

123M.ToString() ==> resuls in: 123
123.00M.ToString() ==> resuls in: 123
123.450M.ToString() ==> resuls in: 123.45

Removing the zeros at the end of the new string is not a real option for me, because then I have to find out if the string contains a fraction and if so, also have to remove the optional '.' or ',' depending on the culture, etc.

Solution

There are several ways to do it, but since you are converting to a String object anyway, I suppose you could try something like this:

myDecimalVariable.ToString("G29");

or, using your code above, assuming 123.00M is your decimal:

123.00M.ToString("G29");

Here is the explanation of how that concise example works:

The G format with a number means to format that many significant digits. Because 29 is the most significant digits that a Decimal can have, this will effectively truncate the trailing zeros without rounding.

Answered By - Michael Hawkins

Answer Checked By - Terry (PHPFixing Volunteer)