Number base conversion class in C#

• Download source/demo/unit test solution - 26 Kb
• Download documentation (.chm) - 81 Kb

Introduction

This library class converts numbers between a variety of number bases - in fact, any number base between 2 (binary) and 36. This goes beyond the .NET framework conversion libraries which offer a limited set of conversions

The library exposes a number of common conversions (such as Binary to Decimal/base10) for simple use as well as allowing user defined conversions under advanced use (such as base 26 to base 5)

Background

Recently I needed to calculate the numeric column ordinals for an Excel spreadsheet. Columns begin at 'A' and continue to 'B, ..., Z, AA, AB, ...' etc. I could not find any code to do this anywhere and also came across a number of posts on various coding sites asking how to perform conversions between arbitrary number bases

I solved my Excel requirement using a short function but decided it would be a useful exercise to develop a general number conversion class - this is the result. This class is generic enough to include handling the Excel scenario as well as all conventional number bases from 2 to 36 (inclusive)

The actual process of converting between bases is fairly trivial and I chose to convert to base 10 as an interim step. Therefore, when converting from base 3 to 7, for example, the code converts from base 3 to 10 then 10 to 7. I'm sure it is possible to develop a single algorithm to perform the conversion in one step so this may appear in a later version although I feel the current solution is easier to maintain and debug so maybe not

Code structure

There are 3 projects in the attached solution:

• MarkGwilliam.com.Framework.Convert - Conversion class library
• MarkGwilliam.com.Framework.Convert.Tests - Unit tests (requires NUnit)
• MarkGwilliam.com.Framework.Convert.Demo - UI demo (see screenshot above)

Using the code

A simple demo is included. Download the code, open the solution, set the Demo project as startup and run. This will start the UI demo which you can use for simple conversions

In your own code, the Converter class can be used in a number of ways:

• Simple use: built-in converters
• Advanced use: custom converters
• Advanced use: converter instances

...these are detailed below

Simple use: built-in converters

The simplest method is to use one of the 12 built-in static converters:

• Convert.BinToDec.Convert()
• Convert.BinToHex.Convert()
• Convert.BinToOct.Convert()
• Convert.DecToBin.Convert()
• Convert.DecToHex.Convert()
• etc.

This allows all conversion combinations using Binary, Octal, Decimal and Hexadecimal. For example:

// Convert FFFF (hex) to binary:

string binary = Converter.HexToBin.Convert("FFFF");

Advanced use: custom converters

In addition to the built-in static converters you can also perform custom conversion:

// Convert FFFF (hex) to base 5:

string base5 = Converter.Convert(NumberBases.Hexadecimal, 5, "FFFF");

Advanced use: converter instances

Converter instances can also be created instead of using the built-in static converters or the static Converter.Convert() methods (overloaded)

Instances are created using the static Converter.Create() factory methods which have a number of overloads. Once an instance is created, calls can be made to the Convert() method to perform conversions using the number bases specified when creating the converter instance

// base 26 (alphabet based) such as Excel column names --> decimal

Converter fromExcel = Converter.Create(26, NumberingSchemes.AToZ, NumberBases.Decimal,
                                       NumberingSchemes.ZeroToZ);

string columnNumber = fromExcel.Convert("AA");

Limitations

There are a few limitations to bear in mind:

• Negative numbers are not supported
• All converted values are returned as strings
• The largest value that can be converted is Int64.MaxValue as long is used internally
• Special character denoting number bases are not supported. For instance, Hexadecimal values are often written as 0xFF01 or &HFF01. This class requires the simpler FF01 notation

Points of Interest

The download includes unit tests (requires NUnit) which, apart from validating the conversions and testing class behaviour, also shows a number of other ways to use the class

The source is liberally commented and the associated documentation file (.CHM) is included

Further development

A couple of future plans:

• Allow use of custom numbering strings. i.e. user defined symbols to use as digits
• Support for number bases > 36

History

• Version 1.0 - 1st Jan 2007 - Initial version