Is there a way in Objective-C to take a number and spell it out?

Question

I'm looking for a way to take a number (say 5 or 207), spell it out, and returns its ordinal form as a string (five or two hundred seven). All I could find was code that takes a number and returns its ordinal suffix (st, nd, rd, th) and the parts of English grammar guides that say you should spell out ordinals.

I'm looking for a way to get a spelled out number with its ordinal suffix (fifth or two hundred seventh).

Answer 1

Update: I came across this answer today, suggesting the use of the use of this library under the MIT-License which also supports a few other languages. Hope this helps someone.

Old Answer:
I coded a script which can this, but only in english:

- (NSString*)getSpelledOutNumber:(NSInteger)num
{
    NSNumber *yourNumber = [NSNumber numberWithInt:(int)num];
    NSNumberFormatter *formatter = [[NSNumberFormatter alloc] init];
    [formatter setNumberStyle:NSNumberFormatterSpellOutStyle];
    [formatter setLocale:[[NSLocale alloc] initWithLocaleIdentifier:@"en"]];
    return [formatter stringFromNumber:yourNumber];
}

- (NSString*)removeLastCharOfString:(NSString*)aString
{
    return [aString substringToIndex:[aString length]-1];
}

- (NSString*)getSpelledOutOrdinalNumber:(NSInteger)num
{    
    NSString *spelledOutNumber = [self getSpelledOutNumber:num];

    // replace all '-'
    spelledOutNumber = [spelledOutNumber stringByReplacingOccurrencesOfString:@"-"
                                                                   withString:@" "];

    NSArray *numberParts = [spelledOutNumber componentsSeparatedByString:@" "];

    NSMutableString *output = [NSMutableString string];

    NSUInteger numberOfParts = [numberParts count];
    for (int i=0; i<numberOfParts; i++) {
        NSString *numberPart = [numberParts objectAtIndex:i];

        if ([numberPart isEqualToString:@"one"])
            [output appendString:@"first"];
        else if([numberPart isEqualToString:@"two"])
            [output appendString:@"second"];
        else if([numberPart isEqualToString:@"three"])
            [output appendString:@"third"];
        else if([numberPart isEqualToString:@"five"])
            [output appendString:@"fifth"];
        else {
            NSUInteger characterCount = [numberPart length];
            unichar lastChar = [numberPart characterAtIndex:characterCount-1];
            if (lastChar == 'y')
            {
                // check if it is the last word
                if (numberOfParts-1 == i)
                { // it is
                    [output appendString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ieth ", [self removeLastCharOfString:numberPart]]];
                }
                else
                { // it isn't
                    [output appendString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@-", numberPart]];
                }
            }
            else if (lastChar == 't' || lastChar == 'e')
            {
                [output appendString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@th-", [self removeLastCharOfString:numberPart]]];
            }
            else
            {
                [output appendString:[NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@th ", numberPart]];
            }
        }
    }

    // eventually remove last char
    unichar lastChar = [output characterAtIndex:[output length]-1];
    if (lastChar == '-' || lastChar == ' ')
        return [self removeLastCharOfString:output];
    else
        return output;
}

The usage is pretty simple:

NSString *ordinalNumber = [self getSpelledOutOrdinalNumber:42];

The number would be 'forty-second'. I hope that helps you.

Answer 2

This should have been accepted as the correct answer. NSNumberFormatter will do the job, and it's a standard approach, not some shaky workaround.

Here is an example:

NSNumberFormatter* numberFormatter = [[NSNumberFormatter alloc] init];
[numberFormatter setNumberStyle:NSNumberFormatterSpellOutStyle];
NSString* stringFromNumber = [numberFormatter stringFromNumber:your_number_goes_here];
NSLog( @"%@", stringFromNumber );

It will output 'one' for 1 'two' for 2 etc. Besides, it works perfectly for nonEnglish locales as well. For example, if you change the number formatter locale to German:

numberFormatter.locale = [NSLocale localeWithLocaleIdentifier:@"DE"];

the code above will print: 'eins' for 1 'zwei' for 2 and so on.