How to format numbers in scientific notation with powers in superscript

Question

I need to write values like:

9.6 x 10²
9.6 x 10¹²

I need to know if there is a way to format numbers as above in a string.

Answer 1

You have to find the appropriate character from the code page you are using, for example UTF-8:

string superScript2 = "²";

There is no such thing as formatting in a string, it is just all data.

Answer 2

Try this:

    public static string Eng(this double x, string format="g")
    {
        const string sup_signs = "⁺⁻⁼⁽⁾ⁿ";
        const string sup_digits = "⁰¹²³⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸⁹";

        if(double.IsNaN(x) || double.IsInfinity(x))
        {
            return x.ToString();
        }

        int num_sign = Math.Sign(x);
        x = Math.Abs(x);
        // group exponents in multiples of 3 (thousands)
        int exp = (int)Math.Floor(Math.Log(x, 10)/3)*3;
        // otherwise use:
        // int exp = (int)Math.Floor(Math.Log(x, 10));
        // and handle the exp==1 case separetly to avoid 10¹
        x*= Math.Pow(10, -exp);
        int exp_sign = Math.Sign(exp);
        exp = Math.Abs(exp);
        // Build the exponent string 'dig' from right to left
        string dig = string.Empty;
        while(exp>0)
        {
            int n = exp%10;
            dig = sup_digits[n] + dig;
            exp = exp/10;
        }
        // if has exponent and its negative prepend the superscript minus sign
        if(dig.Length>0 && exp_sign<0)
        {
            dig = sup_signs[1] + dig;
        }
        // prepend answer with minus if number is negative
        string sig = num_sign<0 ? "-" : "";            
        if(dig.Length>0)
        {
            // has exponent
            return $"{sig}{x.ToString(format)}×10{dig}";
        }
        else
        {
            // no exponent
            return $"{sig}{x.ToString(format)}";
        }
    }

As a test case run

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    // Type code here.
    double x = Math.PI/50e5;
    for(int i = 0; i < 20; i++)
    {
        // Format output to 12 wide column, right aligned
        Debug.WriteLine($"{ Eng(x, "g4"),12}");
        x*=50;
    }
}

with the output:

  628.3×10⁻⁹
  31.42×10⁻⁶
  1.571×10⁻³
  78.54×10⁻³
       3.927
       196.3
   9.817×10³
   490.9×10³
   24.54×10⁶
   1.227×10⁹
   61.36×10⁹
  3.068×10¹²
  153.4×10¹²
   7.67×10¹⁵
  383.5×10¹⁵
  19.17×10¹⁸
  958.7×10¹⁸
  47.94×10²¹
  2.397×10²⁴
  119.8×10²⁴

By no means optimized, but it does the job. The exponents are in engineering form (multiples of 3 only, in order to avoid things like 10¹). As a bonus, the number can be formatted to a specific number of significant digits by supplying a format code like g4 or g5 for 4 or 5 digits respectively.

• It can handle negative or positive numbers
• It can handle negative or positive exponents of 10
• In can format the mantissa
• It can handle NAN or Inf.
• It's in extension form for re-usability

Answer 3

As a follow up to my comment above - does something like this do what you require :

public String FormatAs10Power(decimal val)
{
  string SuperscriptDigits = "\u2070\u00b9\u00b2\u00b3\u2074\u2075\u2076\u2077\u2078\u2079";
  string expstr = String.Format("{0:0.#E0}", val);

  var numparts = expstr.Split('E');
  char[] powerchars = numparts[1].ToArray();
  for (int i = 0; i < powerchars.Length; i++)
  {
    powerchars[i] = (powerchars[i] == '-') ? '\u207b' : SuperscriptDigits[powerchars[i] - '0'];
  }
  numparts[1] = new String(powerchars);
  return String.Join(" x 10",numparts);
}

See : https://dotnetfiddle.net/dX7LAF

As per my comment above - the number is first converted to an exponential format string (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-numeric-format-strings#EFormatString), that string is then split on the exponential separator 'E'. The first array is the numeric part, the second the power of 10 to which it is raised - this is converted to superscript characters using one of the techniques of the link I gave (Convert a string/integer to superscript in C#), converted back to a string & the two parts combined using "x 10" as the new separator.

I have assumed you want the value to single digit precision as per your example with no preceding + sign. If you need anything else you could pass the format as a parameter. The code for superscript + is '\u207A'. There is a link here (at the time of writing) giving the list of superscript codes : http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2070.pdf