Android Conversion to Ordinal Format

Question

Before I go reinventing the wheel, does Android have any facility for converting an integer to an ordinal string with multi-language support? That is, it would convert the integer 3 to "3rd" in English and "3eme" in French.

I can see how to do this myself using a bit of logic along with Android's automatic string substitution, but thought that this surely must have been encountered by others, and not just for use with dates.

Answer 1

Just for future reference, I came across this issue and discovered that now you can use the ICU MessageFormat to do something like this:

import android.icu.text.MessageFormat

fun toOrdinal(day: String): String {
    val formatter = MessageFormat("{0,ordinal}", Locale.getDefault())
    return formatter.format(arrayOf(day.toInt()))
}

You will get these results:

1 -> 1st
2 -> 2nd
3 -> 3rd
4 -> 4th
5 -> (...)

Answer 2

If the range for which you need ordinals is limited, then you are probably best to use a <string-array> to define them:

<string-array name="ordinals">
  <item>zeroth</item>
  <item>1st</item>
  <item>2nd</item>
  <item>3rd</item>
  <item>4th</item>
  <item>5th</item>
  <item>6th</item>
</string-array>

and then access it via:

String ordinal = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.ordinals)[count];

Of course this doesn't get you automatic translation into other languages - you have to do that yourself (and if your count goes outside the range in this simplistic code you will get an exception).

Answer 3

Java nor Android have support for creating ordinal strings. Android does have support for creating plural string resources, but not ordinals.