Finding the number of digits of an integer

Question

What is the best method to find the number of digits of a positive integer?

I have found this 3 basic methods:

• conversion to string

Answer 1

You can use a recursive solution instead of a loop, but somehow similar:

@tailrec
def digits (i: Long, carry: Int=1) : Int =  if (i < 10) carry else digits (i/10, carry+1)

digits (8345012978643L)

With longs, the picture might change - measure small and long numbers independently against different algorithms, and pick the appropriate one, depending on your typical input. :)

Of course nothing beats a switch:

switch (x) {
  case 0:  case 1:  case 2:  case 3:  case 4:  case 5:  case 6:  case 7:  case 8:  case 9: return 1;
  case 10: case 11: // ...
  case 99: return 2;
  case 100: // you get the point :) 
  default: return 10; // switch only over int
}

except a plain-o-array:

   int [] size = {1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,2,... };
   int x = 234561798;
   return size [x];

Some people will tell you to optimize the code-size, but yaknow, premature optimization ...