[c] Convert double/float to string

I need to convert a floating point number to an equivalent string in decimal (or other base). Conversion at first needs to be done in the format xE+0 where x is the floating point number.

The idea I have is to first truncate the floating point number into a temporary integer and then convert that integer into string, and then consider the fractional part, multiply it with 10 while the fractional part does not become 0. After the fractional part is transferred into the left side of the decimal point, apply the integer to string function again and convert the fraction part to string. Is there a better way, which will be faster than this? Will this method induce any kind of side effects?

To convert the floating point number into exponential representation shall I do the same as above and then adjust the power? Or directly bitmask the IEEE 754 floating point representation and convert each part into string.

Note: No other functions could be used, because I have access to absolutely no library functions. This code goes into a toy kernel.

Go and look at the printf() implementation with "%f" in some C library.

Use this:

void double_to_char(double f,char * buffer){
    gcvt(f,10,buffer);
}

sprintf can do this:

#include <stdio.h>
int main() {
  float w = 234.567;
  char x[__SIZEOF_FLOAT__];
  sprintf(x, "%g", w);
  puts(x);
}

Use snprintf() from stdlib.h. Worked for me.

double num = 123412341234.123456789; 
char output[50];

snprintf(output, 50, "%f", num);

printf("%s", output);

I know maybe it is unnecessary, but I made a function which converts float to string:

CODE:

#include <stdio.h>

/** Number on countu **/

int n_tu(int number, int count)
{
    int result = 1;
    while(count-- > 0)
        result *= number;

    return result;
}

/*** Convert float to string ***/
void float_to_string(float f, char r[])
{
    long long int length, length2, i, number, position, sign;
    float number2;

    sign = -1;   // -1 == positive number
    if (f < 0)
    {
        sign = '-';
        f *= -1;
    }

    number2 = f;
    number = f;
    length = 0;  // Size of decimal part
    length2 = 0; // Size of tenth

    /* Calculate length2 tenth part */
    while( (number2 - (float)number) != 0.0 && !((number2 - (float)number) < 0.0) )
    {
         number2 = f * (n_tu(10.0, length2 + 1));
         number = number2;

         length2++;
    }

    /* Calculate length decimal part */
    for (length = (f > 1) ? 0 : 1; f > 1; length++)
        f /= 10;

    position = length;
    length = length + 1 + length2;
    number = number2;
    if (sign == '-')
    {
        length++;
        position++;
    }

    for (i = length; i >= 0 ; i--)
    {
        if (i == (length))
            r[i] = '\0';
        else if(i == (position))
            r[i] = '.';
        else if(sign == '-' && i == 0)
            r[i] = '-';
        else
        {
            r[i] = (number % 10) + '0';
            number /=10;
        }
    }
}

See if the BSD C Standard Library has fcvt(). You could start with the source for it that rather than writing your code from scratch. The UNIX 98 standard fcvt() apparently does not output scientific notation so you would have to implement it yourself, but I don't think it would be hard.