String to Integer (atoi)

Implement atoi to convert a string to an integer.

Hint: Carefully consider all possible input cases. If you want a challenge, please do not see below and ask yourself what are the possible input cases.

Notes: It is intended for this problem to be specified vaguely (ie, no given input specs). You are responsible to gather all the input requirements up front.

spoilers alert... click to show requirements for atoi.

Requirements for atoi:

The function first discards as many whitespace characters as necessary until the first non-whitespace character is found. Then, starting from this character, takes an optional initial plus or minus sign followed by as many numerical digits as possible, and interprets them as a numerical value.

The string can contain additional characters after those that form the integral number, which are ignored and have no effect on the behavior of this function.

If the first sequence of non-whitespace characters in str is not a valid integral number, or if no such sequence exists because either str is empty or it contains only whitespace characters, no conversion is performed.

If no valid conversion could be performed, a zero value is returned. If the correct value is out of the range of representable values, INT_MAX (2147483647) or INT_MIN (-2147483648) is returned.

first iteration:

class Solution {
public:
    int atoi(const char *str) {
        
        // check NULL
        if (!str) {
            return 0;
        }
        
        // use long double to hold value for later overflow check
        long double ret = 0;
        
        // record state meeting first sign/number
        bool hasSign = false;
        bool metFirstNum = false;
        
        // record sign
        bool isNeg = false;
        
        for (const char* ptr = str; *ptr != '\0'; ptr++ ) {
            
            // for white-space
            //   - discard them if no number or sign has been met
            //   - treat as regular non-number char, where we break out from loop      
            //      - if no number has been met, implicitly return 0
            //      - if met number, break from there
            if (*ptr == ' ') {
                 if (!metFirstNum && !hasSign) {
                     continue;
                 } else {
                     break;
                 }
            }
             
            // for sign
            //     - if no sign/number has been met
            //         - check its validity by next char, early return if not valid
            //         - record sign has been met and is negative.
            //      -treat as regular non-number char, break out from loop
            //         - if no number has been met, implicitly return 0
            //         - if met number, break from there
            if (*ptr == '+' || *ptr == '-') {
                if (!metFirstNum && !hasSign) {
                    if (getIntegerFromChar(*(ptr+1))==-1) {
                        return 0;
                    }
                    hasSign = true;
                    isNeg = (*ptr == '-');
                    continue;
                } else {
                    break;
                }
            }
            
            //  for regular non-number char, break out from loop
            //    - if no number has been met, implicitly return 0
            //    - if met number, break from there
            
            // record first number met state
            int digit = getIntegerFromChar(*ptr);
            if (digit == -1) {
                break;
            } else {
                if (!metFirstNum) {
                    metFirstNum = true;
                }
            }
            
            // if must be valid number, treat leading "0" as valid as well
            ret = 10*ret + digit;
        }
        
        // take negative factor
        ret = isNeg ? -ret : ret;
        
        // check overflow
        if (ret < std::numeric_limits<int>::min())  {
            return std::numeric_limits<int>::min();
        }
        
        if (ret > std::numeric_limits<int>::max()) {
            return std::numeric_limits<int>::max();
        }
        
        return ret; 
        
    }
    
    int getIntegerFromChar(const char c) {
        
        int val = c-'0';
        if (val >=0 && val <= 9) {
            return val;
        } 
        
        return -1;
    }
};

2nd iteration

class Solution {
public:
    int atoi(const char *str) {
        
        // check NULL
        if (!str) {
            return 0;
        }
        
        int num = 0;
        int sign = 1;
        
        // discard leading white space
        while (*str != '\0' && *str == ' ') {
            str++;
        }
        
        // deal with first sign
        if (*str == '+') {
            str++;
        } else if (*str == '-') {
            sign = -1;
            str++;
        }
        
        // loop through rest of chars
        while (*str != '\0') {
            
            // break out for invalid
            if (*str < '0' || *str > '9') {
                break;
            }
            
            // check overflow, note unbalanced binary representation of sign is false alarmed,
            // but return the correct value INT_MIN
            if (num > numeric_limits<int>::max()/10 ||
            num == numeric_limits<int>::max()/10 && (*str -'0') > numeric_limits<int>::max()%10) 
            {
                return sign == -1 ? numeric_limits<int>::min() : numeric_limits<int>::max();
            }
            
            // compute number
            num = 10*num + (*str++ -'0');
        }
        
        return sign*num;
    }
};