Scientific Notation Strings to Decimal Scalars

[jerehart]

Hey,

I am reading in from a file which has numbers in the format of:

+1.0500000000000000E+004 or
-0.2500000000000000E+003

any idea on a cheap & easy way to change these strings into scalars? Or turn them into the following strings?

10500, -250 ?

SC

 

[PerlIsGood]

Here you go...

use strict;
my $number = '-1.590000E+001';
print "The decimal value of $number is ",
  (sprintf "%.2f", $number),
  ".\n";

Notorious P.I.G.

 

[jerehart]

Hey P.I.G.

That is freak'n great! mind if you explain it a little ... ?

SC

 

[PerlIsGood]

Sure thing. I'm assuming the part in question is the (sprintf "%.2f", $number) bit, so 'ere goes...

sprintf will format and return a numeric value passed to it, based on the parameters provided between the quotes.

For your example, I passed the value $number to sprintf and 'asked' it to return the number in decimal format (the f 'switch') with 2 numbers following the decimal point (.2).

There are many parameters which you can use, and far more detailed and complex ways to use sprintf, so for a REAL explanation and a ton of good examples, check out this page:

http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.8.0/pod/func/sprintf.html

[hth] Notorious P.I.G.