convert an integer to a string in Erlang

I know, Erlang strings should be avoided at all costs...

but if I'm not doing that, how do I produce "5" from 5?

in particular, is there anything like io:format("~p",[5]) that would return a formatted string instead of printing to a stream?

From stackoverflow

• The following is probably not the neatest way, but it works:

  1> lists:flatten(io_lib:format("~p", [35365])).
  "35365"
  

  EDIT: I've found that the following function comes in useful:

  %% string_format/2
  %% Like io:format except it returns the evaluated string rather than write
  %% it to standard output.
  %% Parameters:
  %%   1. format string similar to that used by io:format.
  %%   2. list of values to supply to format string.
  %% Returns:
  %%   Formatted string.
  string_format(Pattern, Values) ->
      lists:flatten(io_lib:format(Pattern, Values)).
  

  EDIT 2 (in response to comments): the above function came from a small program I wrote a while back to learn Erlang. I was looking for a string-formatting function and found the behaviour of io_lib:format/2 within erl counter-intuitive, for example:

  1> io_lib:format("2 + 2 = ~p", [2+2]).
  [50,32,43,32,50,32,61,32,"4"]
  

  At the time, I was unaware of the 'auto-flattening' behaviour of output devices mentioned by @archaelus and so concluded that the above behaviour wasn't what I wanted.

  This evening, I went back to this program and replaced calls to the string_format function above with io_lib:format. The only problems this caused were a few EUnit tests that failed because they were expecting a flattened string. These were easily fixed.

  I agree with @gleber and @womble that using this function is overkill for converting an integer to a string. If that's all you need, use integer_to_list/1. KISS!

  gleber : There is absolutely no need to use `io_lib:format/2` for this simple task. `integer_to_list/1` is enough.

  archaelus : Also, flattening the resulting iolist is normally wasteful. Sockets/Ports/Files/IoDevices all flatten on output, so flattening yourself is redundant.

  collapsinghrung : integer_to_list/1 is enough for the headlined question, but this does neatly answer my "can you produce formatted strings with interpolated numbers" subquestion...

• There's also integer_to_list/1, which does exactly what you want, without the ugliness.

  Gordon Guthrie : I think you mean list_to_integer/1 and list_to_float/1 as he's trying to go from a string to a number. Also the documentation for these functions is 'hard to find' as they are both part of the Erlang module and you need to know to look there.

  Adam Lindberg : He's trying to convert 5 to "5". Thus, integer to string.

  ErJab : integer_to_list/1 is right.

  womble : @Gordon: title of the question is "convert an integer TO A STRING"...

• As an aside if you ever need to deal with the string representation of floats you should look at the work that Bob Ippolito has done on mochinum.

• A string is a list:

  9> integer_to_list(123).  
  "123"