Question

I want to format a number to have two digits. The problem is caused when 0–9 is passed, so I need it to be formatted to 00–09.

Is there a number formatter in JavaScript?

Answer 1

Edit (2021):

It’s no longer necessary to format numbers by hand like this anymore. This answer was written way-back-when in the distant year of 2011 when IE was important and babel and bundlers were just a wonderful, hopeful dream.

I think it would be a mistake to delete this answer; however in case you find yourself here, I would like to kindly direct your attention to the second highest voted answer to this question as of this edit.

It will introduce you to the use of .toLocaleString() with the options parameter of {minimumIntegerDigits: 2}. Exciting stuff. Below I’ve recreated all three examples from my original answer using this method for your convenience.

[7, 7.5, -7.2345].forEach(myNumber => {
  let formattedNumber = myNumber.toLocaleString('en-US', {
    minimumIntegerDigits: 2,
    useGrouping: false
  })
  console.log(
    'Input:    ' + myNumber + '\n' +
    'Output:   ' + formattedNumber
  )
})

---

Original Answer:

The best method I’ve found is something like the following:

_{(Note that this simple version only works for positive integers)}

var myNumber = 7;
var formattedNumber = ("0" + myNumber).slice(-2);
console.log(formattedNumber);

For decimals, you could use this code (it’s a bit sloppy though).

var myNumber = 7.5;
var dec = myNumber - Math.floor(myNumber);
myNumber = myNumber - dec;
var formattedNumber = ("0" + myNumber).slice(-2) + dec.toString().substr(1);
console.log(formattedNumber);

Lastly, if you’re having to deal with the possibility of negative numbers, it’s best to store the sign, apply the formatting to the absolute value of the number, and reapply the sign after the fact. Note that this method doesn’t restrict the number to 2 total digits. Instead it only restricts the number to the left of the decimal (the integer part). (The line that determines the sign was found here).

var myNumber = -7.2345;
var sign = myNumber?myNumber<0?-1:1:0;
myNumber = myNumber * sign + ''; // poor man's absolute value
var dec = myNumber.match(/\.\d+$/);
var int = myNumber.match(/^[^\.]+/);

var formattedNumber = (sign < 0 ? '-' : '') + ("0" + int).slice(-2) + (dec !== null ? dec : '');
console.log(formattedNumber);