How to get an string representation from an NSDecimal without any formatting?

Question

For example, I have an NSDecimal myDecimal. Lets say it represents something like "-1234567.89"

How can I get a clean string representation of that decimal without any beautification / formatting? No localization? Floating point symbol = . and rest only numbers from 0 to 9, and eventually an - if it is negative? I need that string in strict technical manner. A number like 123456789876554432123456789.2231 should therefore not look like nice formatted "123,456,789,876,554,432,123,456,789.2231". You get the point right? I don't want any formatting. I'm trying all day now to get that right but everything I find always has to do with formatting. So how'd you guys do that?

Answer 1

I don't believe there is such a thing as a "clean" string representation independent of specifying the locale. As many Europeans would point out, 123.45 should be written as 123,45 (using , instead of . for the decimal location). NSDecimalString() (which can be found in the Foundation Functions Reference) takes, as a second parameter a locale specification. If some locale uses the format you desire, pass that locale as the second parameter (see the Internationalization Guide for more info on locales).

Alternatively, you can use an NSNumberFormatter, which will give you more controll over the string representation.