Support for locale-specific formatting and parsing of numbers is provided by the babel.numbers module:
>>> from babel.numbers import format_number, format_decimal, format_percent
Examples:
>>> format_decimal(1.2345, locale='en_US')
u'1.234'
>>> format_decimal(1.2345, locale='sv_SE')
u'1,234'
>>> format_decimal(12345, locale='de_DE')
u'12.345'
While Babel makes it simple to use the appropriate number format for a given locale, you can also force it to use custom patterns. As with date/time formatting patterns, the patterns Babel supports for number formatting are based on the Locale Data Markup Language specification (LDML).
Examples:
>>> format_decimal(-1.2345, format='#,##0.##;-#', locale='en')
u'-1.23'
>>> format_decimal(-1.2345, format='#,##0.##;(#)', locale='en')
u'(1.23)'
The syntax for custom number format patterns is described in detail in the the specification. The following table is just a relatively brief overview.
Symbol Description 0 Digit 1-9 '1' through '9' indicate rounding. @ Significant digit # Digit, zero shows as absent . Decimal separator or monetary decimal separator - Minus sign , Grouping separator E Separates mantissa and exponent in scientific notation + Prefix positive exponents with localized plus sign ; Separates positive and negative subpatterns % Multiply by 100 and show as percentage ‰ Multiply by 1000 and show as per mille ¤ Currency sign, replaced by currency symbol. If doubled, replaced by international currency symbol. If tripled, uses the long form of the decimal symbol. ' Used to quote special characters in a prefix or suffix * Pad escape, precedes pad character
Babel can also parse numeric data in a locale-sensitive manner:
>>> from babel.numbers import parse_decimal, parse_number
Examples:
>>> parse_decimal('1,099.98', locale='en_US')
1099.98
>>> parse_decimal('1.099,98', locale='de')
1099.98
>>> parse_decimal('2,109,998', locale='de')
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
NumberFormatError: '2,109,998' is not a valid decimal number
Note
Number parsing is not properly implemented yet