How can I convert a string in scientific notation into anumber?

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Hallo everybody,

I discovered another weird malfunction of .NET:
Usually VS can handle the scientific notation. Like 'double a = 12.0e-6;' is interpreted as 0.000012.
But now I am trying to read this number from a file, so as a string. And in contrast to the correct result above, the function 'Convert.ToDouble("12.0e-6")' results in 0.00012! There is one zero missing respective it is too large by factor 10.
This happens regularly with all numbers (positive and negative) and all conversions.

Is there a reason why this fails in my program or does it always fail?
Do you know another way to convert these strings with .NET?

Thank you very much in advance!

Posted 22-Sep-15 22:51pm

herrstress

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Solution 2

It 'fails' because in your application CultureInfo the dot ('.') is not recognized as decimal separator. Try, for instance:

double d = Convert.ToDouble("12.0e-6", System.Globalization.CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.NumberFormat);

Posted 22-Sep-15 23:25pm

CPallini

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herrstress 23-Sep-15 5:43am

This one I checked before. It fails the same way when it's only factor "12". The cultureInfo within the program is always en-US.

CPallini 23-Sep-15 5:50am

On my system it (of course) produces the correct result (1.2E-5).

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OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-22T23:19:00

There are a lot of different ways to convert values.
You could try double.TryParse:

C#

double val;
if (double.TryParse("12.0e-6", out val))
   {
   ...
   }

But...when I try your code, I get the right result. In fact, I get the same result regardless of what method I use.

C#

double a = 12.0e-6;
double b = Convert.ToDouble("12.0e-6");
double c;
if (double.TryParse("12.0e-6", out c))
    {

    }
Console.WriteLine("{0}\n{1}\n{2}\nAll same? {3}", a, b, c, a == b && a == c);

Gives me:

1.2E-05
1.2E-05
1.2E-05
All same?True