Map Integer from Decimal to Hexadecimal with Custom Mapping in JavaScript

Usually when we convert a decimal to hexadecimal (base 16) we use the set 0123456789ABCDEF to map the number.

We are required to write a function that does exactly the same but provides user the freedom to use any scale rather than the one mentioned above.

For example −

The hexadecimal notation of the decimal 363 is 16B
But if the user decides to use, say, a scale ‘qwertyuiopasdfgh’ instead of
‘0123456789ABCDEF’, the number 363, then will be represented by wus

That’s what we are required to do.

So, let’s do this by making a function toHex() that makes use of recursion to build a hex out of the integer. To be precise, it will take in four arguments, but out of those four, only the first two will be of use for the end user.

First of them will be the number to be converted to hex, and second the custom scale, it will be optional and if it is supplied, it should be a string of exactly 16 characters otherwise the function returns false. The other two arguments are hexString and isNegative which are set to empty string and a boolean respectively by default.

Example

const num = 363;
const toHex = (
   num,
   hexString = '0123456789ABCDEF',
   hex = '',
   isNegative = num < 0
   ) => {
   if(hexString.length !== 16){
      return false;
   }
   num = Math.abs(num);
   if(num && typeof num === 'number'){
      //recursively append the remainder to hex and divide num by 16
      return toHex(Math.floor(num / 16), hexString,
      `${hexString[num%16]}${hex}`, isNegative);
   };
   return isNegative ? `-${hex}` : hex;
};
console.log(toHex(num, 'QWERTYUIOPASDFGH'));
console.log(toHex(num));
console.log(toHex(num, 'QAZWSX0123456789'))

Output

The output in the console will be −

WUS
16B
A05