Hi everyone,
I can't figure out how to format numbers to have a certain number of
significant figures (as opposed to decimal places) without using
scientific notation and including trailing zeros if necessary.
e.g. I would like to achieve the following:
0.800001 ---> 0.8000
123.4567 ---> 123.4
0.1234567 ---> 0.1234
7.654321 ---> 7.654
7654321 ---> 7654000
It seems like it should be simple, but I can't seem to do this using
sprintf. Specifically, I get the following outputs:
> vec = c(0.800001, 123.4567, 0.1234567, 7.654321, 7654321)
> # this specifies precision after decimal point, rather than
significant figures
> sprintf("%.4f", vec)
[1] "0.8000" "123.4567" "0.1235" "7.6543"
"7654321.0000"
> # uses scientific notation, but significant figures are correct
> sprintf("%.3e", vec)
[1] "8.000e-01" "1.235e+02" "1.235e-01" "7.654e+00" "7.654e+06"
> # correct number of significant figures, and without scientific
notation, but has trailing zeros on large numbers
> sprintf("%.4f", sprintf("%.3e", vec))
[1] "0.8000" "123.5000" "0.1235" "7.6540"
"7654000.0000"
Am I missing something obvious and can someone help me?
Many thanks
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