This repository provides a function for formatting a 32-bit floating point number as a string.

It does most of the work required for printf suport. In keeping with the flavor of embeded systems, it allows you to provide the buffer and the size of the buffer for formatting.

It deals with most of what printf needs to do, with the exception of width and zero padding. This support can be added outside of the format_float routine.

Prototype:

int format_float(float f, char *buf, size_t buf_size, char fmt, int prec, char sign);

fmt should be one of 'e', 'E', 'f', 'F', 'g', or 'G'.

prec is the precision (as specified in printf)

sign should be '\0', '+', or ' ' ('\0' is the normal one - only print a sign if f is negative. Anything else is printed as the sign character for positive nubers.

To test:

make

will compile and build a program called float which runs a number of tests to compare format-float with that of the builtin printf.

It also performs a number of tests to verify that no buffer overflows occur.

For the 'f' format, if the number won't fit in the buffer, then it will be converted to 'e' format.

For any of the formats, precision will be reduced if the result will still fit in the buffer.