Converting integers to roman numerals

Question

I\'m trying to write a function that converts numbers to roman numerals. This is my code so far; however, it only works with numbers that are less than 400. Is there a quick

Answer 1

This version doesn't "cheat" as others: it generates internally the "base" table with all the "base" "composable" numbers. For lazyness I'm using Tuples, instead of creating specialized classes. If you don't have C# 4.0, you can replace Tuple<> with KeyValuePair<>, Item1 with Key and Item2 with Value.

static Tuple>, int> GenerateBaseNumbers()
{
    const string letters = "IVXLCDM";

    var tuples = new List>();
    Tuple subtractor = null;

    int num = 1;
    int maxNumber = 0;

    for (int i = 0; i < letters.Length; i++)
    {
        string currentLetter = letters[i].ToString();

        if (subtractor != null)
        {
            tuples.Add(Tuple.Create(subtractor.Item1 + currentLetter, num - subtractor.Item2));
        }

        tuples.Add(Tuple.Create(currentLetter, num));

        bool isEven = i % 2 == 0;

        if (isEven)
        {
            subtractor = tuples[tuples.Count - 1];
        }

        maxNumber += isEven ? num * 3 : num;
        num *= isEven ? 5 : 2;
    }

    return Tuple.Create((IList>)new ReadOnlyCollection>(tuples), maxNumber);
}

static readonly Tuple>, int> RomanBaseNumbers = GenerateBaseNumbers();

static string FromNumberToRoman(int num)
{
    if (num <= 0 || num > RomanBaseNumbers.Item2)
    {
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException();
    }

    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    int i = RomanBaseNumbers.Item1.Count - 1;

    while (i >= 0)
    {
        var current = RomanBaseNumbers.Item1[i];

        if (num >= current.Item2)
        {
            sb.Append(current.Item1);
            num -= current.Item2;
        }
        else
        {
            i--;
        }
    }

    return sb.ToString();
}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    for (int i = 1; i <= RomanBaseNumbers.Item2; i++)
    {
        var calc = FromNumberToRoman(i);

        Console.WriteLine("{1}", i, calc);
    }
}