23-Emerald IV

Question

Converting Real Numbers to Strings

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
June 26, 2015
4 replies
22543 views

There are a plethora of discussions on converting real numbers to strings. While PTC tech support does provide two working suggestions, they are not simple. Beyond that, I have been unable to find anything on the PTC Community that will work in all cases. (See list at bottom.) With that as the background, here is my attempt at a robust real-to-string function that I believe works correctly for all positive numbers. Please test this out and let me know if you can find any errors with it.

/* Real Number
X = 12.34567

/* Number of Digits
ND = 3

/* Rounded Number
RN = FLOOR((X+(5/10^(ND+1))),ND)

/* String Output - No Leading Zero
Y = ITOS(FLOOR(RN))+"."+EXTRACT(ITOS((RN-FLOOR(RN)+1)*10^(ND)),2,ND)

* To get a zero before the decimal point for values less than one, a conditional statement is required:

/* String Output With Leading Zero

IF FLOOR(RN) == 0

Y = "0."+EXTRACT(ITOS((RN-FLOOR(RN)+1)*10^(ND)),2,ND)

ELSE

Y = ITOS(FLOOR(RN))+"."+EXTRACT(ITOS((RN-FLOOR(RN)+1)*10^(ND)),2,ND)

ENDIF

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For those who find this stuff interesting, what's unique about this formula is the addition of '1' to the decimal portion. This effectively "traps" any zeros between the decimal and the last digit allowing them to be extracted as text.

.001 - Initial Value

1.001 - Add '1'

1001 - Multiply by (10 * the number of digits)

"1001" - Use the integer to string function to convert this to text.

"001" - Extract everything except the first digit.

Thanks to ‌ for the rounding technique of adding '5' after the number of digits. X+(5/10^(ND+1))

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Related discussions and support articles:

General

T

TomU

Author

23-Emerald IV

Here are single line versions with fixed decimal places. Just replace all the "X"s in each formula with your dimension.

/* String Output - No Leading Zero, Three Decimal Places
Y = ITOS(FLOOR(X+.0005))+"."+EXTRACT(ITOS(((FLOOR((X+.0005),3))-FLOOR(FLOOR((X+.0005),3))+1)*1000),2,3)

/* String Output - No Leading Zero, Four Decimal Places
Z = ITOS(FLOOR(X+.00005))+"."+EXTRACT(ITOS(((FLOOR((X+.00005),4))-FLOOR(FLOOR((X+.00005),4))+1)*10000),2,4)

Marco Tosin

21-Topaz I

Tom,

today is the day I've made a lots of things without knowing it

Are you talking about this SPR 2207900 – complain to PTC for BIG regression on Windchill 10.2 when citing me?

If that's the case, it's a different Marco and he's one of our consultants (he works for a PTC partner here in Italy).

Marco

T

TomU

Author

23-Emerald IV

Sorry, it was really late light night when I was working on this. It should have said MartinHanak, and it was based on Re: How To: Format a real number relation in a note?

T

tdowney

10-Marble

I think I might be beating a dead horse on this one, but this might work for a wider array of real numbers.

str_y = extract(itos(floor(1000 * y )),1,string_length(itos(floor(1000* y )))-3) + "." + extract(itos(floor(1000* y )),string_length(itos(floor(1000* y )))-2,3)

Patriot_1776

22-Sapphire II

Ok, this "itos" stuff is giving me a real headache. I see a bunch of solutions, but I'm not understanding how to implement them, so I'll be specific. I want to make the line below work and give me 3 decimal places fro all the parameters. It's completely retarded that you can't simply use the "[.3]" that you can in dwgs.

Anyways, here's what I'm trying to do to get the relation to work to make the parameter "DWG_TITLE2" work to fill out the BOM correctly. I've made it a flexible part, so it'd be nice to have it work parametrically to fill out the BOM.

DWG_TITLE2 = itos(A1_SPRING_OD) + " OD" + "," + " " + itos(A1_FREE_LENGTH) + " LONG," + itos(A1_WIRE_DIAMETER) + " WIRE DIAMETER,"

Thanks in advance!

B

BenLoosli

23-Emerald III

Post some sample values for your variables so we can see what a finished note should look like.

A1_spring_od

A1_free_lemgth

A1_wire_diameter

Also how many decimal places do you want in your note? That will change how the ITOS has to be manipulated.

R

rmcboaty

1-Visitor

thanks for the described method, TomU, it is very helpful.

Is it wrong for me to try to use it in a drawing program?

I would like to set a note on a drawing to either " " or to "surface hardened 0.1 - 0.2 inches" depending on a parameter (basically until the assembly is a work in progress, it should stay at " "). I have copied the formulae to the drw program, but it gives me an error every time i try to edit it again (apparently it doesn't like RN:d, X:d drawing parameters).

I am doing this because this is for main assembly drawing only and i would like to keep it separate from the production drawings just in case. Also i already have a plethora of model params, some of them with similar names to the ones above, but almost none on the drawing (drw parameter).

T

TomU

Author

23-Emerald IV

I don't think it will work in a drawing program. Instead of using a drawing program use a single cell repeat region and use it in the repeat region relations.

T

TomU

Author

23-Emerald IV

Creo Parametric 11.0 was released today, and it includes a new 'rtos' function to perform 'real to string' conversion automatically.

https://support.ptc.com/help/creo/creo_pma/r11.0/usascii/index.html#page/whats_new_pma/fund_real_to_string.html#