Binary/Octal format specifier

[anthony-sv]

I think I'd be cool and easy to integrate to the language a way to specify Binary or Octal format Specifier, since we can with Hexadecimal, from Standard numeric format specifiers B/b and O/o are free so would have a problem, and we currently have easy way to convert to string with Convert.ToString(value, 2); for binary or from "any" base (more like 2,8,10,16) Convert.ToString(Convert.ToInt32(number, fromBase), toBase);, so we have the way to do this but if it's already working for Hex I don't see why limit it to 1 base, well technically 2 because base 10 is default.

[CyrusNajmabadi]

I think I'd be cool and easy to integrate to the language a way to specify Binary or Octal format Specifier

This is already supported for binary. can use 0b as the prefix for that purpsoe.

[anthony-sv]

Are you sure? Pretty sure 0b will just be treated as extra text added to the string representation of the object. Hence trying to format for example 255 with 0b will just be 255b

[FaustVX]

@anthony-sv
Have you tried it by yourself ?
sharplab.io

[anthony-sv]

@FaustVX that's a binary literal, I'm talking about Standard Numeric Format Specifiers. i.e. I want to be able to do this:
Console.WriteLine($"{255:B}"); // 11111111

[svick]

@anthony-sv This repo is specifically about the C# language, so people interpreted your request is for changing how the language handles numbers in different bases.

But you're talking about standard numeric format strings, which is handled by .Net libraries, not by the C# language. Which means the right place for this request is dotnet/runtime.

[tannergooding]

Do you have a scenario for Octal in particular? One of the few places I can think of it being used is Linux file permissions.

0o7 and 0O7 both have large readability issues and its something I'd personally rather not see.

Some languages use q instead and so 0q7 or 0Q7 would represent the same. Its more "readable", but isn't really "clear" as to it meaning octal if you aren't familiar with the convention.

[CyrusNajmabadi]

FWIW, i was around when the original decisions on this were made (though i was not part of hte decision making). And the general feeling back then was that C-style octal was just far too niche and confusing. It was especially undesirable that something like 010 be different from 10. We could always use a different prefix, but it still feels like octal just isn't useful enough to warrant that.

[anthony-sv]

Mostly for implementing some hardware emulation, and some niche stuff, but in my opinion it's better to have the option even if you won't use it, just like for example in C# we have the option to use operator overloading, where as in Java we don't. About the notation, yeah I don't think an o or 0 would be good for readability and double format is not the C# way, But with O/o I don't think it's that confusing compared to 0 alone, I think that why some made something like 0x for Hex and 0o for Octal and 0b for binary, but in C# are 1 letter specifiers so I don't think O is that bad, but could be Q/q while I agree somebody would have to look for it because its's not "natural" I think that's the case of Hex, we use X instead of H, it's more like a convention now, than "clear". For example in cryptography you would want to use base 64, and we don't even have access to it.

[CyrusNajmabadi]

Moving to runtime as this was a request about format-specifiers. Sorry for hte confusion. We thought you were asking for C# literal support here.

[danmoseley]

@anthony-sv Please create an issue in this repo to if you want to propose the format specifier. You could probably use the API proposal issue template although its not really API. I'm guessing it might go to API review.