NumberFormatter

Number and currency formatter inspired by Cocoa's NSNumberFormatter. Supports a wide range of locales.

NumberFormatter provides tools to format numbers into their textual representation.

It currently supports standard number formatting as well as currency formatting.

The output is properly localized in the given locale (and defaults to the current navigator locale).

• decimal separator: symbol used to separate the integer and fraction part of a number.
• grouping separator: symbol between logical groups in the number (e.g. , in the USA, but in France)
• grouping size: size of these logical groups. Usually 3, but certain locales define a…
• secondary grouping size: in some locales, the grouping size for larger numbers may be different. For a secondary grouping size of 2 and a grouping size of 3, 123456789 would be formatted as 12,34,56,789 for example.
• numbers alphabet: not every locale is using a Latin script. In Egypt, 123,456 is written ١٢٣٬٤٥٦.

The currency symbol also depends on the locale: the symbol used in the country where the currency is in use (local symbol) is usually different from the one in usage in different countries. For example, the US dollar symbol is $ in the USA, but $US in France.

Install

We currently support basic browser integration

<script src="./locale.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="./numberformatter.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

It can also be used through AMD requirejs:

requirejs('numberformatter', function(NumberFormatter) {
    ...
} 

and as a Node module

require('./numberformatter') // has locale as dependency

Basic usage

Format any number in the current locale:

(1234.5).stringFromNumber(); // "1,234.5" in the USA

Format a number in a specific locale:

(1234.5).stringFromNumber('fr-fr'); // "1 234,5"
(1234.5).stringFromNumber('fr-ch'); // "1'234.5"

Note that in these examples, we're using the shorthand function defined directly on Number. You can also write:

var formatter = new NumberFormatter();
formatter.stringFromNumber(1234.5); // "1,234.5" in the USA

Currency

Format any number in a given currency (with the current locale)

// en-US locale
(123.9).formatAsCurrency('USD'); // "$123.90"
(123.9).formatAsCurrency('EUR'); // "€123.90"

// fr-FR locale
(123.9).formatAsCurrency('USD'); // "123,90 $US"
(123.9).formatAsCurrency('EUR'); // "123,90 €"

It is of course possible to pass a specific locale:

(123.9).formatAsCurrency('USD', 'en-ca'); // "$US123.90"
(123.9).formatAsCurrency('GBP', 'fr-fr'); // "123,90 £GB"
(1234567.89).formatAsCurrency('AED', 'ar-ae') // "١٬٢٣٤٬٥٦٧٫٨٩ د.إ.‏"

Note that currency formatting conforms to the maximum fraction digits value for the currency. For example, the Japanese Yen (JPY) doesn't allow any fraction digit because something like ¥JP123.45 is incorrect, so you would get:

(123.9).formatAsCurrency('JPY', 'ja-JP'); // "¥124"

Advanced usage

You can customize the formatting behavior by creating your own NumberFormatter instance. This way you can specify a minimum fraction digits value for example:

var formatter = new NumberFormatter();
formatter.minimumFractionDigits = 4;
formatter.stringFromNumber(1234); // "1,234.0000"

Well… in fact you can override any property:

formatter.decimalSeparator = '🐶'; 
formatter.groupingSeparator = '🐮';
formatter.stringFromNumber(1234567.89); // "1🐮234🐮567🐶89"

This includes:

• decimalSeparator
• groupingSeparator
• groupingSize
• secondaryGroupingSize
• currencySymbol
• minimumFractionDigits
• maximumFractionDigits
• positivePrefix
• negativePrefix
• script with one of the following values: Latin, Arabic, Devanagari, Urdu, Myanmar, Bengali, Tibetan. Locale and currency code can be changed using the setters:

var formatter = new NumberFormatter();
formatter.setLocale('de-de');
formatter.setCurrencyCode('CNY');

In some locales, you can have multiple scripts support. For example the Uzbek language (uz) has Latin and Arabic. In these cases, you may specify the script:

(1234.5).stringFromNumber('uz', 'Latn'); // "1 234,5"
(1234.5).stringFromNumber('uz', 'Arab'); // "۱٬۲۳۴٫۵"

Specifying a script not supported by the locale will result in a warning (if Locale.DEBUG is enabled):

(1234.5).stringFromNumber('uz', 'Hans');
// [Warning] Script Hans is not available for the locale "uz". 
// Available scripts are: [Arab, Cyrl, Latn]. 
// Defaulting to Latn.

Numbers alphabet

NumberFormatter currently supports the following alphabets:

• Latin: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
• Arabic: ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩
• Dévanâgarî: ० १ २ ३ ४ ५ ६ ७ ८ ९
• Urdu: ۰ ۱ ۲ ۳ ۴ ۵ ۶ ۷ ۸ ۹
• Myanmar: ၀ ၁ ၂ ၃ ၄ ၅ ၆ ၇ ၈ ၉
• Bengali: ০ ১ ২ ৩ ৪ ৫ ৬ ৭ ৮ ৯
• Tibetan: ༠ ༡ ༢ ༣ ༤ ༥ ༦ ༧ ༨ ༩

(123456789.12345).stringFromNumber('en');
  "123,456,789.12345" // Latin
(123456789.12345).stringFromNumber('ar');
  "١٢٣٬٤٥٦٬٧٨٩٫١٢٣٤٥" // Arabic
(123456789.12345).stringFromNumber('hi');
  "१२,३४,५६,७८९.१२३४५" // Dévanâgarî
(123456789.12345).stringFromNumber('uz');
  "۱۲۳ ۴۵۶ ۷۸۹,۱۲۳۴۵" // Urdu
(123456789.12345).stringFromNumber('my');
  "၁၂၃,၄၅၆,၇၈၉.၁၂၃၄၅" // Myanmar
(123456789.12345).stringFromNumber('bn');
  "১২,৩৪,৫৬,৭৮৯.১২৩৪৫" // Bengali
(123456789.12345).stringFromNumber('dz');
  "༡༢,༣༤,༥༦,༧༨༩.༡༢༣༤༥" // Tibetan

References

• Numeral scripts: Numerals in many different writing systems
• NSNumberFormatter class reference
• CLDR - Unicode Common Locale Data Repository