Decimal to Hexadecimal Converter in Java

Question

I have a homework assignment where I need to do three-way conversion between decimal, binary and hexadecimal. The function I need help with is converting a decimal into a hexadecimal. I have nearly no understanding of hexadecimal, nonetheless how to convert a decimal into hex. I need a function that takes in an int dec and returns a String hex. Unfortunately I don't have any draft of this function, I'm completely lost. All I have is this.

  public static String decToHex(int dec)
  {
    String hex = "";


    return hex;
  }

Also I can't use those premade functions like Integer.toHexString() or anything, I need to actually make the algorithm or I wouldn't have learned anything.

Answer 1

One possible solution:

import java.lang.StringBuilder;

class Test {
  private static final int sizeOfIntInHalfBytes = 8;
  private static final int numberOfBitsInAHalfByte = 4;
  private static final int halfByte = 0x0F;
  private static final char[] hexDigits = { 
    '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', 
    '8', '9', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F'
  };

  public static String decToHex(int dec) {
    StringBuilder hexBuilder = new StringBuilder(sizeOfIntInHalfBytes);
    hexBuilder.setLength(sizeOfIntInHalfBytes);
    for (int i = sizeOfIntInHalfBytes - 1; i >= 0; --i)
    {
      int j = dec & halfByte;
      hexBuilder.setCharAt(i, hexDigits[j]);
      dec >>= numberOfBitsInAHalfByte;
    }
    return hexBuilder.toString(); 
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
     int dec = 305445566;
     String hex = decToHex(dec);
     System.out.println(hex);       
  }
}

Output:

1234BABE

Anyway, there is a library method for this:

String hex = Integer.toHexString(dec);

Answer 2

Simple:

  public static String decToHex(int dec)
  {
        return Integer.toHexString(dec);
  }

As mentioned here: Java Convert integer to hex integer

Answer 3

I need a function that takes in an int dec and returns a String hex.

I found a more elegant solution from http://introcs.cs.princeton.edu/java/31datatype/Hex2Decimal.java.html . I changed a bit from the original ( see the edit )

// precondition:  d is a nonnegative integer
public static String decimal2hex(int d) {
    String digits = "0123456789ABCDEF";
    if (d <= 0) return "0";
    int base = 16;   // flexible to change in any base under 16
    String hex = "";
    while (d > 0) {
        int digit = d % base;              // rightmost digit
        hex = digits.charAt(digit) + hex;  // string concatenation
        d = d / base;
    }
    return hex;
}

Disclaimer: I ask this question in my coding interview. I hope this solution doesn't get too popular :)

Edit June 17 2016 : I added the base variable to give the flexibility to change into any base : binary, octal, base of 7 ...
According to the comments, this solution is the most elegant so I removed the implementation of Integer.toHexString() .

Edit September 4 2015 : I found a more elegant solution http://introcs.cs.princeton.edu/java/31datatype/Hex2Decimal.java.html