What is the method in the API for converting between bases?

Question

What is the method that you can use to convert between bases in Java? It is something like IntegerToBase (int, base), but I cannot remember.

Answer 1

Literally speaking, integer values are not converted from one base to another. Thanks to von Neumann, one of the pioneers of computing, who thought the idea of trying to use base 10 arithmetic on binary circuitry made little sense, integers are stored in binary format and we are not trying to change that :-) What we are talking about is converting them to strings representing them in some base (other that base 10 which is the default) and converting strings to integers in bases other than (the default) base 10. The necessary tools are static methods of the Integer class.

• Java provides the Integer.toString(int i, int radix) conversion function which takes an integer and a radix (the base) and returns that integer's string representation in that base.

  String hexRepr = Integer.toString(255, 16)  // returns "FF"
  

• To go the other way around, i.e. from a string representing a number in a different base there is Integer.parseInt(String s, int radix)

  int myNum = Integer.parseInt("FF", 16)  // returns 255
  

• To convert a number represented as a base radix1 string to a base radix2 string representation the two methods just mentioned have to be combined as the following examples shows:

  int radix1 = 16;  // The input will be parsed assuming base 16 representation
  int radix2 = 4;   // The result will be output using a base 4 representation
  String input = "FF"; // which in base 16 represents the number 255 
  String converted = Integer.toString(Integer.parseInt(radix1Representation, radix1),radix2);  /// returns "3333"  which in base 4 is the number 255
  

More details can be found in the API documentation. I have included some of it here, to ensure readers also see the things they need to be careful with when using these methods.

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public static String toString(int i, int radix)

This method returns a string representation of the first argument in the radix specified by the second argument.

If the radix is smaller than Character.MIN_RADIX or larger than Character.MAX_RADIX, then the radix 10 is used instead.

If the first argument is negative, the first element of the result is the ASCII minus character '-' ('\u002D'). If the first argument is not negative, no sign character appears in the result.

The remaining characters of the result represent the magnitude of the first argument. If the magnitude is zero, it is represented by a single zero character '0' ('\u0030'); otherwise, the first character of the representation of the magnitude will not be the zero character. The following ASCII characters are used as digits:

0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 

These are '\u0030' through '\u0039' and '\u0061' through '\u007A'. If radix is N, then the first N of these characters are used as radix-N digits in the order shown. Thus, the digits for hexadecimal (radix 16) are 0123456789abcdef. If uppercase letters are desired, the String.toUpperCase() method may be called on the result:

Integer.toString(n, 16).toUpperCase() 

Source: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Integer.html#toString%28int,%20int%29

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public static int parseInt(String s, int radix) throws NumberFormatException

This method parses the string argument as a signed integer in the radix specified by the second argument. The characters in the string must all be digits of the specified radix (as determined by whether Character.digit(char, int) returns a nonnegative value), except that the first character may be an ASCII minus sign '-' ('\u002D') to indicate a negative value or an ASCII plus sign '+' ('\u002B') to indicate a positive value. The resulting integer value is returned.

An exception of type NumberFormatException is thrown if any of the following situations occurs:

• The first argument is null or is a string of length zero.

• The radix is either smaller than Character.MIN_RADIX or larger than Character.MAX_RADIX.

• Any character of the string is not a digit of the specified radix, except that the first character may be a minus sign '-' ('\u002D') or plus sign '+' ('\u002B') provided that the string is longer than length 1.

• The value represented by the string is not a value of type int.

Examples:

parseInt("0", 10)           // returns 0
parseInt("473", 10)         // returns 473
parseInt("+42", 10)         // returns 42
parseInt("-0", 10)          // returns 0
parseInt("-FF", 16)         // returns -255
parseInt("1100110", 2)      // returns 102
parseInt("2147483647", 10)  // returns 2147483647
parseInt("-2147483648", 10) // returns -2147483648
parseInt("2147483648", 10)  // throws NumberFormatException
parseInt("99", 8)           // throws NumberFormatException
parseInt("Kona", 10)        // throws NumberFormatException
parseInt("Kona", 27)        // returns 411787

Source: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Integer.html#parseInt%28java.lang.String,%20int%29