Allocation-free way of showing numbers in the UI using TextMesh Pro

Hello,

Basically, calling

textObject.text = "" + 12345;

(or

textObject.text = 12345.ToString();

) will result in a small allocation. If the text changes frequently, this might trigger the garbage collector (GC).

Today, I saw the SetCharArray function of the TextMesh Pro text objects and decided to implement some extension functions that fill a char array with the digits of an integer. Then, this array is passed to the SetCharArray function. This results in no allocations.

Available at: https://gist.github.com/yasirkula/31704321d6eef8df19933fe502ae6219

After importing the script to your project, you can simply call

textObject.SetText( 12345 );

. Be aware that Profiler will show some GC while testing on the Editor but there is no GC in a build.

P.S. Now supports float and doubles, as well!

Enjoy!