Question

According to javadoc, the ‘#’ flag stands for “The result should use a conversion-dependent alternate form“. I wasn’t able to find any details on that. Could someone explain what is the “conversion-dependent alternate form“?

Answer 1

There are examples given in the javadoc.

eg for an integer being output as octal,

If the ‘#’ flag is given then the output will always begin with the
radix indicator ‘0’.

or as hex,

If the ‘#’ flag is given then the output will always begin with the
radix indicator “0x”.

For floating-point numbers,

If the ‘#’ flag is given, then the decimal separator will always be
present.