Formatting Numbers For Output

While FORTRAN regards formatting of numbers for output as part of an output operation, ICL performs formatting using an operator (:), which produces a string result from a numeric operand. Thus if I is an integer variable the expression I:5 has as its value the string which is produced by converting I with a field width of 5 characters. Thus it is equivalent to an I5 format in FORTRAN. Similarly if X is a real variable the expression X:10:4 produces the value of X formatted in a FORTRAN F10.4 format (i.e. a field width of 10 characters, and four decimal places). The ICL formatting is not precisely equivalent to the FORTRAN form because ICL will extend the field width if a number is too large to fit in the requested width.

    ICL> = 1.234567:5:2
     1.23
    ICL> = 12.34567:5:2
    12.35
    ICL> = 123.4567:5:2
    123.46
    ICL> = 123456.7:5:2
    123456.70

Integers can also be formatted in binary, octal, decimal or hexadecimal formats using the functions BIN, OCT, DEC and HEX. These have the form HEX(X,n,m) which would return a string of n characters containing the number X with m significant digits. n and m may be omitted in which case they default to the number of digits needed to represent a full 32 bit word. Using these forms together with constants in various bases, ICL can be used to perform conversions between various bases.

    ICL> = %Xffff
          65535
    ICL> = hex(65535)
     0000FFFF
    ICL> = OCT(%XFF,5,5)
    00377