Is there a C# format specifier that will omit the leading zero unless the value is zero?

Question

In other words, I want 0.123 to show as ".123", but 0 should show as "0". Currently the best I've got is

String.Format("{0:.###}", n)

which gives ".123" for 0.123, but "" (the empty string) for 0.

Answer 1

If you use ; as a separator, you can specify formats for positive, negative, and zero values. string.Format("{0:.###;-.###;0}", n) will display '0' when n==0 and will leave off the leading zero for positive and negative values. Check the MSDN reference here.

Answer 2

if all else fails you could do something like:

 string s = n == 0 ? "0" : String.Format("{0:.###}", n);

not brilliant, but will get the job done :-)

Answer 3

here is something you can try I added a place where you can test the code and change the variable from 0 to .1234 to test

var decNum =.1234;//change to 0 will return 0 change to .1234 will return the correct formatted value

var formatDecil = String.Format("{0:.###}", decNum);
formatDecil = string.IsNullOrEmpty(formatDecil) ? 0.ToString():formatDecil;