Roman numerals

Sometimes, you write a piece of code you’re proud of. Because it’s a clever, elegant, or just fun. The snippet I post here is a bit of all, at least in my opinion.

[code=c#]///

Converts an System.Int32 to Roman number strings.
/// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals
///

/// Number to convert. /// Formatted Roman number.
public static string ToFormattedRomanNumber(int number)
{
if (number <= 0 || number > 3999)
{
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException(“With the default ASCII set only Roman numerals between 1 and 4000 can be represented.”);
}
// 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000.
string[] order = { “I”, “V”, “X”, “L”, “C”, “D”, “M” };
int pointer = 0;
int digits = number;
string result = string.Empty;

while (digits > 0)
{
int digit = digits % 10;
switch (digit)
{
case 0: break;
case 1: result = string.Format(
“{1}{0}”, result, order[pointer]);
break;
case 2: result = string.Format(
“{1}{1}{0}”, result, order[pointer]);
break;
case 3: result = string.Format(
“{1}{1}{1}{0}”, result, order[pointer]);
break;
case 4: result = string.Format(
“{1}{2}{0}”, result, order[pointer], order[pointer + 1]);
break;
case 5: result = string.Format(
“{1}{0}”, result, order[pointer + 1]);
break;
case 6: result = string.Format(
“{2}{1}{0}”, result, order[pointer], order[pointer + 1]);
break;
case 7: result = string.Format(
“{2}{1}{1}{0}”, result, order[pointer], order[pointer + 1]);
break;
case 8: result = string.Format(
“{2}{1}{1}{1}{0}”, result, order[pointer], order[pointer + 1]);
break;
case 9: result = string.Format(
“{1}{2}{0}”, result, order[pointer], order[pointer + 2]);
break;
}
digits = digits / 10;
pointer = pointer + 2;
}
return result;
}[/code]

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