What is the proper way of implementing a good “ito

Question

I was wondering if my implementation of an "itoa" function is correct. Maybe you can help me getting it a bit more "correct", I'm pretty sure I'm missing something. (Maybe there is already a library doing the conversion the way I want it to do, but... couldn't find any)

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <ctype.h>

char * itoa(int i) {
  char * res = malloc(8*sizeof(int));
  sprintf(res, "%d", i);
  return res;
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
 ...

Answer 1

i found an interesting resource dealing with several different issues with the itoa implementation
you might wanna look it up too
itoa() implementations with performance tests

Answer 2

There a couple of suggestions I might make. You can use a static buffer and strdup to avoid repeatedly allocating too much memory on subsequent calls. I would also add some error checking.

char *itoa(int i)
{
  static char buffer[12];

  if (snprintf(buffer, sizeof(buffer), "%d", i) < 0)
    return NULL;

  return strdup(buffer);
}

If this will be called in a multithreaded environment, remove "static" from the buffer declaration.

Answer 3

A good int to string or itoa() has these properties;

• Works for all [INT_MIN...INT_MAX], base [2...36] without buffer overflow.
• Does not assume int size.
• Does not require 2's complement.
• Does not require unsigned to have a greater positive range than int. In other words, does not use unsigned.
• Allows use of '-' for negative numbers, even when base != 10.

Tailor the error handling as needed. (needs C99 or later):

char* itostr(char *dest, size_t size, int a, int base) {
  // Max text needs occur with itostr(dest, size, INT_MIN, 2)
  char buffer[sizeof a * CHAR_BIT + 1 + 1]; 
  static const char digits[36] = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ";

  if (base < 2 || base > 36) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Invalid base");
    return NULL;
  }

  // Start filling from the end
  char* p = &buffer[sizeof buffer - 1];
  *p = '\0';

  // Work with negative `int`
  int an = a < 0 ? a : -a;  

  do {
    *(--p) = digits[-(an % base)];
    an /= base;
  } while (an);

  if (a < 0) {
    *(--p) = '-';
  }

  size_t size_used = &buffer[sizeof(buffer)] - p;
  if (size_used > size) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Scant buffer %zu > %zu", size_used , size);
    return NULL;
  }
  return memcpy(dest, p, size_used);
}

Answer 4

I'm not quite sure where you get 8*sizeof(int) as the maximum possible number of characters -- ceil(8 / (log(10) / log(2))) yields a multiplier of 3*. Additionally, under C99 and some older POSIX platforms you can create an accurately-allocating version with sprintf():

char *
itoa(int i) 
{
    int n = snprintf(NULL, 0, "%d", i) + 1;
    char *s = malloc(n);

    if (s != NULL)
        snprintf(s, n, "%d", i);
    return s;
}

HTH

Answer 5

main()
{
  int i=1234;
  char stmp[10];
#if _MSC_VER
  puts(_itoa(i,stmp,10));
#else
  puts((sprintf(stmp,"%d",i),stmp));
#endif
  return 0;
}