Retrieving the first digit of a number [duplicate]

Answer 1

Almost certainly more efficient than using Strings:

int firstDigit(int x) {
    while (x > 9) {
        x /= 10;
    }
    return x;
}

(Works only for nonnegative integers.)

Answer 2

firstDigit = number/((int)(pow(10,(int)log(number))));

This should get your first digit using math instead of strings.

In your example log(543) = 2.73 which casted to an int is 2. pow(10, 2) = 100 543/100 = 5.43 but since it's an int it gets truncated to 5

Answer 3

This way might makes more sense if you don't want to use str methods

int first = 1;
for (int i = 10; i < number; i *= 10) {
    first = number / i;
}