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Golang Integer to String

·250 words·2 mins
Sebastian Scheibe
Author
Sebastian Scheibe
Table of Contents

The Go standard library offers the strconv package which has two functions to convert an integer to a string. In the following, let’s go into detail on how and where to use which one.

  1. strconv.Itoa(i int) string
  2. strconv.FormatInt(i int64, base int) string

strconv.Itoa(i int)
#

The strconv.Itoa(i int) function converts an integer to a string. The function name is short for “integer to ASCII”. The function takes an integer as an argument and returns a string. Internally, it is calling the FormatInt function with base 10.

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "strconv"
)

func main() {
    i := 42
    s := strconv.Itoa(i)
    fmt.Printf("%T %v\n", s, s)
}

The output of the above program is:

string 42

strconv.FormatInt(i int64, base int)
#

The strconv.FormatInt(i int64, base int) function converts an integer to a string. It takes two arguments, the integer to convert and the base to use for the conversion. The base must be between 2 and 36, inclusive. It’s input integer requires type int64, conversion must be done explicitly.


package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "strconv"
)

func main() {
    i := 42
    s := strconv.FormatInt(int64(i), 10)
    sHex := strconv.FormatInt(int64(i), 16)
    fmt.Printf("%T %v\n", s, s)
    fmt.Printf("%T %v\n", sHex, sHex)
}

The output of the above program is:

string 42
string 2a

Conclusion
#

In conclusion, the strconv.Itoa(i int) function is the easiest way to convert an integer to a string. If you need more control over the conversion, use the strconv.FormatInt(i int64, base int) function.

References
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