R help - Aug 2003 - 'format' problem

Dear R experts,

  format(12345678, digits = 2)

gives
  [1] "1.2e+07"

while
  format(1234567, digits = 2)

gives
  [1] "1234567"

but I'd like the last number to be represented as "1.2e+06" string
too.

Where am I wrong?

Thanks,
Timur.

Dear Timur,

sprintf may be what you want:
   sprintf("%.1e", 12345678)
   sprintf("%.1e", 1234567)


Regards,

Andrew C. Ward

CAPE Centre
Department of Chemical Engineering
The University of Queensland
Brisbane Qld 4072 Australia
andreww at cheque.uq.edu.au


Quoting Timur Elzhov <Timur.Elzhov at jinr.ru>:
> Dear R experts,
> 
>   format(12345678, digits = 2)
> 
> gives
>   [1] "1.2e+07"
> 
> while
>   format(1234567, digits = 2)
> 
> gives
>   [1] "1234567"
> 
> but I'd like the last number to be represented as
> "1.2e+06" string too.
> 
> Where am I wrong?
> 
> Thanks,
> Timur.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>

Timur Elzhov <Timur.Elzhov at jinr.ru> wrote:
> format(1234567, digits = 2)
>   [1] "1234567"
> but I'd like the last number to be represented as "1.2e+06"
string too.
R chooses "1234567" instead of "1.2e+06" because it has
fewer or equal number
of characters (equal in this case).

In R-devel (which will become R-1.8.0, as I understand it), an options(scipen)
has been added which penalizes scientific notation by an additional number of
characters.  In your case, a negative penalty would do the trick:

  R-devel> options(scipen=-9)
  R-devel> format(1234567, digits = 2)
           [1] "1.2e+06"

However, unless you feel like compiling a development version or waiting
until 1.8.0, Andrew C. Ward's <s195404 at student.uq.edu.au>
suggestion is
probably the simpler way to go:
  Ward> sprintf("%.1e", 1234567)
-- 
                              -- David Brahm (brahm at alum.mit.edu)