Question

I have an integer in an Access database, which is being displayed in ASP.NET. The integer represents the position achieved by a competitor in a sporting event (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), and I’d like to display it with a standard suffix like ‘st’, ‘nd’, ‘rd’ as appropriate, rather than just a naked number.

An important limitation is that this is for an assignment which specifies that no VB or C# code be written (in fact it instructs code behind files to be deleted entirely). Ideally I’d like to use a standard format string if available, otherwise perhaps a custom string (I haven’t worked with format strings much, and this isn’t high enough priority to dedicate significant time to*, but I am very curious about whether there’s a standard string for this).

(* The assignment is due tonight, and I’ve learned the hard way that I can’t afford to spend time on things that don’t get the marks, even if they irk me significantly.)

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there is no standard format string to do this. But it’s not that hard to write:

public static string ToOrdinal(this int i, string format)
{
   string suffix = "th";
   switch (i%100)
   {
       case 11:
       case 12:
       case 13:
          //deliberately empty
          break;
       default:
          switch (i%10)
          {
              case 1:
                  suffix = "st";
                  break;
              case 2:
                  suffix = "nd";
                  break;
              case 3:
                  suffix = "rd";
                  break;
           }
           break;
   }
   return i.ToString(format) + suffix;
}