Positive/Negative button not displaying properly - objective-c

Question

I am trying to add a positive/negative button onto a numerical input in a UItextfield, but I cannot get it to function properly. What I want it to do is just add or remove a negative sign from the front of the numerical input. I am able to do that, however I cannot find a method to maintain the original number of decimal places. This is what I have tried:
- (IBAction) negsign
{
float input = [userinput.text floatValue];
float result = ((input * (-1)));
negstring = [NSString stringWithFormat:
#"%f", result];
userinput.text = negstring;
}
With this I get just a string of zeros after, like -23.0000000. I've tried limiting the decimal places by changing to #"%.2f" but I dont want extra zeros for whole integers, or rounding more than 2 decimals places. I just want it to take something like 34.658939 or 23 and make it -34.658939 or -23. Does anyone have a method to do this?

Answer 1

What would work best in your case is the following code:
float input = [userinput.text floatValue];
float result = ((input * (-1)));
NSNumber *resultNum = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:result];
NSString *resultString = [resultObj stringValue];
userinput.text = resultString;
If you're trying to make the number negative instead of reversing the sign, it'd be better if you replace float result = ((input * (-1))); with float result = -ABS(input);

Answer 2

Really, the best way to handle this would be to never convert it from a string in the first place. Just replace the first character as needed like this:
- (IBAction) negsign
{
unichar firstCharacter = [userinput.text characterAtIndex:0];
if (firstCharacter == '-') {
// Change the first character to a + sign.
userinput.text = [userinput.text stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(0, 1)
withString:#"+"];
} else if (firstCharacter == '+') {
// Change the first character to a - sign.
userinput.text = [userinput.text stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(0, 1)
withString:#"-"];
} else {
// There is no sign so we assume that it is positive.
// Insert the - at the beginning.
userinput.text = [userinput.text stringByReplacingCharactersInRange:NSMakeRange(0, 0)
withString:#"-"];
}
}