ObjC/Cocoa class for converting size to human-readable string?

Starting in OS X 10.8 and iOS 6, you can use NSByteCountFormatter.

Your example would look like this:

[NSByteCountFormatter stringFromByteCount:20000000 countStyle:NSByteCountFormatterCountStyleFile];

NSString *stringFromFileSize(NSInteger theSize)
{
    /*
     From http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/3038 with slight modification
     */
    float floatSize = theSize;
    if (theSize<1023)
        return([NSString stringWithFormat:@"%i bytes",theSize]);
    floatSize = floatSize / 1024;
    if (floatSize<1023)
        return([NSString stringWithFormat:@"%1.1f KB",floatSize]);
    floatSize = floatSize / 1024;
    if (floatSize<1023)
        return([NSString stringWithFormat:@"%1.1f MB",floatSize]);
    floatSize = floatSize / 1024;

    return([NSString stringWithFormat:@"%1.1f GB",floatSize]);
}

I would mush this into an NSFormatter subclass.

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

@interface SOFileSizeFormatter : NSNumberFormatter 
{
    @private
    BOOL useBaseTenUnits;
}

/** Flag signaling whether to calculate file size in binary units (1024) or base ten units (1000).  Default is binary units. */
@property (nonatomic, readwrite, assign, getter=isUsingBaseTenUnits) BOOL useBaseTenUnits;

@end

static const char sUnits[] = { '\0', 'K', 'M', 'G', 'T', 'P', 'E', 'Z', 'Y' };
static int sMaxUnits = sizeof sUnits - 1;

@implementation SOFileSizeFormatter

@synthesize useBaseTenUnits;

- (NSString *) stringFromNumber:(NSNumber *)number
{
    int multiplier = useBaseTenUnits ? 1000 : 1024;
    int exponent = 0;

    double bytes = [number doubleValue];

    while ((bytes >= multiplier) && (exponent < sMaxUnits)) {
        bytes /= multiplier;
        exponent++;
    }

    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %cB", [super stringFromNumber: [NSNumber numberWithDouble: bytes]], sUnits[exponent]];
}

@end

Usage:

NSString *path = ...; // path to a file of 1,500,000 bytes
NSString *sizeString = nil;

NSNumber *sizeAttrib = [[[NSFileManager defaultManager] attributesOfItemAtPath:path error:NULL]objectForKey:NSFileSize];

SOFileSizeFormatter *sizeFormatter = [[[SOFileSizeFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
[sizeFormatter setMaximumFractionDigits:2];

sizeString = [sizeFormatter stringFromNumber:sizeAttrib];
// sizeString ==> @"1.43 MB"

[sizeFormatter setUseBaseTenUnits:YES];
sizeString = [sizeFormatter stringFromNumber:sizeAttrib];
// sizeString ==> @"1.5 MB"

Here's my own take on the problem:

enum {
    kUnitStringBinaryUnits     = 1 << 0,
    kUnitStringOSNativeUnits   = 1 << 1,
    kUnitStringLocalizedFormat = 1 << 2
};

NSString* unitStringFromBytes(double bytes, uint8_t flags){

    static const char units[] = { '\0', 'k', 'M', 'G', 'T', 'P', 'E', 'Z', 'Y' };
    static int maxUnits = sizeof units - 1;

    int multiplier = (flags & kUnitStringOSNativeUnits && !leopardOrGreater() || flags & kUnitStringBinaryUnits) ? 1024 : 1000;
    int exponent = 0;

    while (bytes >= multiplier && exponent < maxUnits) {
        bytes /= multiplier;
        exponent++;
    }
    NSNumberFormatter* formatter = [[[NSNumberFormatter alloc] init] autorelease];
    [formatter setMaximumFractionDigits:2];
    if (flags & kUnitStringLocalizedFormat) {
        [formatter setNumberStyle: NSNumberFormatterDecimalStyle];
    }
    // Beware of reusing this format string. -[NSString stringWithFormat] ignores \0, *printf does not.
    return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"%@ %cB", [formatter stringFromNumber: [NSNumber numberWithDouble: bytes]], units[exponent]];
}

By default (if 0 is passed for flags), it will output SI units (base ten). You can set kUnitStringBinaryUnits to select binary (base two) units suitable for memory, or kUnitStringOSNativeUnits to have the unit type selected automatically based on OS version (pre-Leopard gets base two, post-Leopard gets base ten). Setting kUnitStringLocalizedFormat formats the string based on the user's current locale. For example:

unitStringFromBytes(1073741824, 0); // → "1.07 GB"
unitStringFromBytes(1073741824, kUnitStringBinaryUnits); // → "1 GB"
unitStringFromBytes(1073741824, kUnitStringOSNativeUnits | kUnitStringLocalizedFormat); // → "1.07 GB" (In Mac OS 10.6)
unitStringFromBytes(12345678901234567890123456789, kUnitStringOSNativeUnits | kUnitStringLocalizedFormat); // → "12,345.68 YB" (In Mac OS 10.6, in the US)
unitStringFromBytes(12345678901234567890123456789, kUnitStringOSNativeUnits | kUnitStringLocalizedFormat); // → "12.345,68 YB" (In Mac OS 10.6, in Spain)

---

Here's the helper function required for OS-native units:

BOOL leopardOrGreater(){
    static BOOL alreadyComputedOS = NO;
    static BOOL leopardOrGreater = NO;
    if (!alreadyComputedOS) {
        SInt32 majorVersion, minorVersion;
        Gestalt(gestaltSystemVersionMajor, &majorVersion);
        Gestalt(gestaltSystemVersionMinor, &minorVersion);
        leopardOrGreater = ((majorVersion == 10 && minorVersion >= 5) || majorVersion > 10);
        alreadyComputedOS = YES;
    }
    return leopardOrGreater;
}