How to add commas to a string using recursion - c++

Question

I'm a beginner on programming. I'm coding a school assignment and its asking me to add commas to a string using recursion. I have most of it done but when I input a number greater than a million it doesn't add a comma before the first digit. This is what i have so far:
// commas - Convert a number (n) into a string, with commas
string commas(int n) {
ostringstream converted;
converted << n;
string number = converted.str();
int size = number.length();
if (size < 4 )
{
return number;
}
if (size >= 4 )
{
return number.substr(0, number.size() - 3) + "," + number.substr(number.size() - 3, number.length());
}
}
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

The algorithm is fairly simple. It is very similar to your solution except I added the part necessary for recursion. To understand how it works, remove tack_on. Here is example output:
1
10
100
These are the first groups that are returned when the terminating condition is reached (s.size() < 4). Then the rest of the groups are prefixed with a comma and "tacked on". The entire string is built using recursion. This is important because if you left number.substr(0, number.size() - 3) in, your output would look like this:
11,000
1010,000
100100,000
11,0001000,000
I use std::to_string which is C++11:
#include <iostream>
std::string addCommas(int n)
{
std::string s = std::to_string(n);
if (s.size() < 4) return s;
else
{
std::string tack_on = "," + s.substr(s.size() - 3, s.size());
return addCommas(n / 1000) + tack_on;
}
}
You only need to make minimal changes for the C++03/stringstream version:
#include <sstream>
std::ostringstream oss;
std::string addCommas(int n)
{
oss.str(""); // to avoid std::bad_alloc
oss << n;
std::string s = oss.str();
// etc
}
Testing:
int main()
{
std::cout << addCommas(1) << "\n";
std::cout << addCommas(10) << "\n";
std::cout << addCommas(100) << "\n";
std::cout << addCommas(1000) << "\n";
std::cout << addCommas(10000) << "\n";
std::cout << addCommas(100000) << "\n";
std::cout << addCommas(1000000) << "\n";
return 0;
}
Output:
1
10
100
1,000
10,000
100,000
1,000,000

Answer 2

I think this one is a bit simpler and easier to follow:
std::string commas(int n)
{
std::string s = std::to_string(n%1000);
if ((n/1000) == 0) return s;
else
{
// Add zeros if required
while(s.size() < 3)
{
s = "0" + s;
}
return commas(n / 1000) + "," + s;
}
}

Answer 3

an alternative approach without recursion:
class Grouping3 : public std::numpunct< char >
{
protected:
std::string do_grouping() const { return "\003"; }
};
std::string commas( int n )
{
std::ostringstream converted;
converted.imbue( std::locale( converted.getloc(), new Grouping3 ) );
converted << n;
return converted.str();
}
will need #include <locale> in some environments
A possible solution for the assignment could be:
std::string commas( std::string&& str )
{
return str.length() > 3?
commas( str.substr( 0, str.length()-3 ) ) + "," + str.substr( str.length()-3 ):
str;
}
std::string commas( int n )
{
std::ostringstream converted;
converted << n;
return commas( converted.str() );
}