Stuart's Useful C/C++ Pages
How do I use itoa() with GCC?
Arrgghh C/C++! It would appear that itoa()
isn't ANSI C standard and doesn't work with GCC on Linux (at least the version I'm using). Things like this are frustrating especially if you want your code to work on different platforms (Windows/Linux/Solaris/whatever).
Many people say that you should just use sprintf to write to a character string but that doesn't allow for one of the features of itoa(); the ability to write in a base other than 10. This page contains a series of evolving versions of an itoa implementation. The oldest are near the top and the latest at the bottom. Please make sure that you use the latest version.
Credits
Before we go any further, I would like to say thanks to the people that contributed to the solutions below. This function has been put together by contributions from Stuart Lowe (that's me), Robert Jan Schaper, Ray-Yuan Sheu, Rodrigo de Salvo Braz, Wes Garland, John Maloney, Brian Hunt, Fernando Corradi and Lukás Chmela.
Development
Below is an early version described by Robert Jan Schaper on Google groups:
char* version 0.1
This doesn't quite look like the implementation I am used to which is more like itoa(int value, char* buffer, int radix)
. In the end I have made my own version which uses a std::string instead of a character string.
std::string version 0.1
Update: (2005/02/11)
Ray-Yuan Sheu sent me an email with an improved version which does a bit more error checking for things like a base that is out of range and for negative integers.
Update: (2005/04/08)
Rodrigo de Salvo Braz spotted a bug that meant nothing was returned when the input was zero. It now returns "0". This bug has also been spotted by Luc Gallant.
std::string version 0.2
Update: (2005/05/07)
Wes Garland says that lltostr
exists under Solaris and several other unices. It should return a char *
of a long long in multiple number bases. There is also ulltostr
for unsigned values.
Update: (2005/05/30)
John Maloney has pointed out various problems with the previous implementation. One of the major issues was the amount of heap allocation going on. He suggested that a lot of this be removed to speed up the algorithm. Below are two versions based on his excellent suggestions. The char*
version is at least 10 times faster than the code above. The new std::string
version is 3 times faster than before. Although the char*
version is faster, you should check that you have allocated enough space to hold the output.
std::string version 0.3
char* version 0.2
Update: (2006/10/15)
Luiz Gon?lves tells me that although not an ANSI standard, itoa comes in many packages and it is written in many textbooks. He suggests a version written in pure ANSI C based on a version from Kernighan & Ritchie's Ansi C . A base error is reported by the return of an empty string but the function does no checks of sizes and no allocations. This version is provided below along with a slightly modified version (architecture specific tweaks), the std::string
version and the C++ char* itoa()
version.
Update: (2009/07/08)
Over the past year I've had a few suggestions for improvements to both the std::string and char* versions of the code. I've finally had time to test them.
In the std::string version, Brian Hunt suggested to move the reserve after the base check to save memory allocations. This does speed things up a little.
std::string version 0.4
There have also been several suggestions for improvements to the char* version of the code. Fernando Corradi suggested moving the abs() so that it is used only once and not using the modulus operator (%) but rather calculating it by hand saving a division. This does speed things up a little:
char* version 0.3
However, Lukás Chmela has re-written the code so that it doesn't have a "most negative number" bug:
char* version 0.4
Latest Versions
Below are the latest versions of the itoa function using either char*
or std::string
as you prefer. I haven't included the Kernighan & Ritchie based versions in this section because I'm not sure what the copyright status is for those. However, the functions below have been developed by the people mentioned on this page and are available for use.
std::string version 0.4
char* version 0.4
Performance Comparsion
I've done some testing of the versions of itoa by finding the average time required to perform conversions, of the integers in the range -32768 to 32767, in every base from base 2 to base 20 (the code only works up to base 16 so the extra bases are just there as tests). The summary is presented in the following table:
function | relative time |
---|---|
char* style "itoa" (v 0.2)char* itoa(int value, char* result, int base) | 1.0 (XP, Cygwin, g++) |
char* style "itoa" (v 0.3)char* itoa(int value, char* result, int base) | 0.93 |
char* style "itoa" (v 0.4)char* itoa(int value, char* result, int base) | 0.72 |
Ansi C "itoa" based on Kernighan & Ritchie's "Ansi C" with modification to optimize for specific architecturevoid itoa(int value, char* str, int base) | 0.92 |
std::string style "itoa" (v 0.3)std::string itoa(int value, int base) | 41.5 |
std::string style "itoa" (v 0.4)std::string itoa(int value, int base) | 40.8 |