words2num2 — words to numbers

The inverse of num2words2.

words2num2 parses spoken-form numbers — "forty-two", "trois cent quatre", "二十三" — and returns numeric values. It mirrors num2words2's locale list (100+ languages, 120 dispatch entries) and adds a free-text auto-parse mode that handles currencies, units, configurable thousands/decimal separators, and ASR/LLM-style mixed text.

The project is hosted on GitHub, and the full documentation is available in the Wiki. Contributions are welcome.

Why this library

Existing inverse libraries are usually English-only, lack a sentence mode, and don't compose with the locale defaults you already use for the forward direction. words2num2:

• Accepts the same locale codes as num2words2 so the two libraries are drop-in inverses of each other.
• Has a hand-written grammar parser for English and a generic reverse-lookup backend that auto-derives {words → number} tables from num2words2 for every other locale out of the box.
• Walks free text via words2num_sentence / auto_parse_sentence — useful when post-processing ASR transcripts, LLM output, or user-typed forms that mix words and digits.
• Handles currency symbols ($ € £ ¥ ₹ ₽ ₩ ₺), ISO codes (USD/EUR/...), scale shortcuts ($5m → 5,000,000), units (length / mass / temperature / time / volume / percent), and CLDR-style number formats per locale.
• Pluralizes long-form units in expand mode (5 dollars / 1 dollar, 5 feet / 1 foot, 5 yen / 1 yen).

Installation

pip:

pip install words2num2

Arch Linux / Manjaro (AUR):

# With an AUR helper
yay -S python-words2num2
paru -S python-words2num2

# Or manually
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/python-words2num2.git
cd python-words2num2
makepkg -si

From source:

git clone https://github.com/jqueguiner/words2num2
cd words2num2
pip install -e .

num2words2 is a runtime dependency for the generic multi-language backend and is installed automatically.

Quickstart

>>> from words2num2 import words2num, words2num_sentence
>>> words2num("forty-two")
42
>>> words2num("one thousand two hundred thirty-four")
1234
>>> words2num("minus seven")
-7
>>> words2num("three point one four")
Decimal('3.14')
>>> words2num("nineteen ninety nine", to="year")
1999
>>> words2num("twenty-first", to="ordinal")
21
>>> words2num("quarante-deux", lang="fr")
42
>>> words2num("zweiundvierzig", lang="de")
42
>>> words2num("сорок два", lang="ru")
42

>>> words2num_sentence("I bought twenty-three apples and fourteen pears.")
'I bought 23 apples and 14 pears.'

Auto-parse mode

auto_parse extracts a numeric value plus its unit from any free-text expression. auto_parse_sentence walks running text and replaces every quantity in place. It supports configurable thousands/decimal separators per locale, currency symbols and ISO codes, scale shortcuts, SI/imperial units, percent, and disambiguation hints.

>>> from words2num2 import auto_parse, auto_parse_sentence

# Currencies
>>> auto_parse("$12,345.00")
Quantity(value=12345.0, unit='USD', kind='currency', confidence=1.0)
>>> auto_parse("$5m").value
5000000
>>> auto_parse("12,50 €", lang="de").value
12.5

# Units
>>> auto_parse("5cm")
Quantity(value=5, unit='cm', kind='length', confidence=1.0)
>>> auto_parse("20°C").kind
'temperature'
>>> auto_parse("forty-two kg").value
42

# Configurable separators
>>> auto_parse("1.234,56", lang="de").value
1234.56
>>> auto_parse("1 234,56", lang="fr").value
1234.56

# Disambiguation for ambiguous unit tokens
>>> auto_parse("5m", prefer={"m": "mile"}).unit_long
'mile'

# Sentence mode
>>> auto_parse_sentence("Pay $12.50 for 5kg of apples at -5°C.")
'Pay 12.5 USD for 5 kg of apples at -5 °C.'

# Expand mode renders the long unit form, with English plural rules
>>> auto_parse_sentence("Pay $12.50 for 5kg.", expand=True)
'Pay 12.5 dollars for 5 kilograms.'
>>> auto_parse_sentence("Pay $1.00 for 1kg.", expand=True)
'Pay 1 dollar for 1 kilogram.'
>>> auto_parse_sentence("5 ft and 1 ft.", expand=True)
'5 feet and 1 foot.'

Configurable number formats

parse_number_string is the primitive used by auto_parse for digit-form numbers. You can call it directly with explicit separators or rely on per-locale CLDR-style defaults:

>>> from words2num2 import parse_number_string

>>> parse_number_string("12,345.67")                              # auto-detect
12345.67
>>> parse_number_string("12.345,67", lang="de")                   # German defaults
12345.67
>>> parse_number_string("1 234,56", lang="fr")                    # French defaults (NBSP)
1234.56
>>> parse_number_string("12'345.67", thousands_sep="'", decimal_sep=".")  # Swiss
12345.67
>>> parse_number_string("1_234.56", thousands_sep="_")            # programmer
1234.56

The locale defaults table covers 50+ locales: English/CJK use comma thousands and period decimal; French uses non-breaking-space + comma; Swiss French uses apostrophe + period; German/Spanish/Italian/Portuguese/ Dutch/Romanian use period + comma; Russian/Scandinavian/Slavic use space + comma. See words2num2/formats.py for the full table.

Auto-detection heuristic (when no override and no locale match):

1. If both . and , appear, the rightmost one is the decimal.
2. If one separator appears multiple times, it is thousands.
3. If one separator appears once with exactly 3 trailing digits, it is thousands; otherwise it is decimal.
4. Spaces, NBSP, apostrophe, and underscore are always thousands.

Command line

$ words2num2 "forty-two"
42
$ words2num2 "trois cent quatre" --lang=fr
304
$ words2num2 "twenty-third" --to=ordinal
23

Supported locales

words2num2 mirrors num2words2's locale list — 120 dispatch entries including:

af, am, ar, as, az, ba, be, bg, bn, bo, br, bs, ca, ce, cs, cy, da, de, el, en, en_IN, en_NG, eo, es, es_CO, es_CR, es_GT, es_NI, es_VE, et, eu, fa, fi, fo, fr, fr_BE, fr_CH, fr_DZ, gl, gu, ha, haw, he, hi, hr, ht, hu, hy, id, is, it, ja, jw, ka, kk, km, kn, ko, kz, la, lb, ln, lo, lt, lv, mg, mi, mk, ml, mn, mr, ms, mt, my, ne, nl, nn, no, oc, pa, pl, ps, pt, pt_BR, ro, ru, sa, sd, si, sk, sl, sn, so, sq, sr, su, sv, sw, ta, te, tet, tg, th, tk, tl, tr, tt, uk, ur, uz, vi, wo, yi, yo, zh, zh_CN, zh_HK, zh_TW

Aliases: jp → ja, cn → zh_CN.

Wiki

For the full documentation, including installation, API details, CLI usage, supported locales, sentence conversion, auto-parse behavior, and migration guidance, please check the Wiki. Feel free to propose wiki enhancements.

Conversion types

The to= parameter accepts cardinal, ordinal, ordinal_num, year, and currency — same set as num2words2.

How it works

• English (lang_EN) ships a hand-written recursive-descent parser that handles cardinals, ordinals, decimals, negatives, scale words to centillion, year mode, "and" connectors, and hyphenation.
• Every other locale uses Words2Num_Base, which lazily builds a {normalized_words: integer} table by calling num2words2 for each integer in a configurable range (defaults to -1..10000). This guarantees correctness for the lookup window for every locale supported upstream — at the cost of out-of-range values raising Words2NumError until a hand-written parser is added.

Hand-written grammar parsers can be added incrementally per locale by overriding to_cardinal / to_ordinal in the corresponding words2num2/lang_XX.py module — same pattern as num2words2.

Public API

Function / class	Purpose
words2num(text, lang, to)	Parse a single word-form number.
words2num_sentence(text, ...)	Replace every word-number in running text.
auto_parse(text, ...)	Parse a single quantity (number + unit).
auto_parse_sentence(text, ...)	Replace every quantity in running text.
parse_number_string(text, ...)	Digit-form parser with separators.
Quantity	Dataclass returned by auto_parse.
UNITS / CURRENCIES	Registries of recognized units and currencies.
NUMBER_FORMAT_DEFAULTS	Per-locale separator defaults.
CONVERTER_CLASSES	Per-locale converter registry.
Words2NumError	Raised when input cannot be parsed.

See REFERENCE.md for the full API reference with parameters, return types, and examples.

Development

git clone https://github.com/jqueguiner/words2num2
cd words2num2
make install-dev
make test          # pytest
make lint          # black + flake8 + isort
make format        # apply black + isort

Releasing

Every push of a tag matching v* triggers GitHub Actions to:

1. Build sdist + wheel.
2. Run the test installation in a clean environment.
3. Generate release notes and create a GitHub Release.
4. Publish to PyPI via Trusted Publishing (no token in CI).

To cut a release:

git tag vX.Y.Z
git push origin vX.Y.Z

A manual fallback workflow (Publish to PyPI (manual)) is available via gh workflow run and uses PYPI_API_TOKEN / TEST_PYPI_API_TOKEN repo secrets.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

License

LGPL-2.1, mirroring num2words2. See COPYING.