Function to format number as currency?

I would like to format the number as a $xxx,xxx,xxx.xx currency, what is the easiest way to do this?

Answer 1

[Oleg Komarov]

Or using java:

% Formatting according to locale

j = java.text.NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance();
j.format(1000.3243)

% Different currency

curr = java.util.Locale.US;
j = java.text.NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(curr);
j.format(1000.3243)

For a list of java.util.Locale.*: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/1.3/docs/api/java/util/Locale.html

[Nicholas Copsey]

is there a way to pass through two columns of an array into this, or not?

[Walter Roberson]

is there a way to pass through two columns of an array into this, or not?

Not. Not even if you construct a java.lang.Double array and pass that in. You would need to arrayfun over the array getting back a matrix of java strings, and then figure out how to put the java strings together in a way suitable for your purposes.

[Walter Roberson]

x = randn(2,3);                  %some data

curr = java.util.Locale.US;
j = java.text.NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(curr);
arrayfun(@(v) string(j.format(v)), x)

ans = 
  2×3 string array
    "$0.14"      "$0.30"    "($0.93)"
    "($0.29)"    "$0.40"    "($0.18)"

... But then what? Notice that the entries are not all the same size. Do you want to put them into fixed-width columns? Should they be left-aligned? Right-aligned? Decimal-place aligned?

[HG-NU]

Is there anyway to get the symbole for Saudi Arabia currency in this code please?

curr = java.util.Locale.US;
j = java.text.NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(curr);
j.format(1000.3243)

The link above is not working.

[Walter Roberson]

I found a way but it is messier than seems appropriate, so I am still looking.

[Walter Roberson]

j = java.text.NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(java.util.Locale("ar", "SA"));

j.format(1000.3243)

ans =

ر.س.‏ 1,000.32

[HG-NU]

Great ... Thanks

[Hareesh Agraharam]

instead of depedending on java, is there any other API or way in MATLAB to get the currency format based on our OS region settings?

[Walter Roberson]

That is portable? There are ActiveX methods to query the environment on Windows, but not on Mac or Linux.

Mac and Linux use the LANG environment variable and optionally some other related variables to specialize particular facets. A lot of the time you only get LANG such as en_US and you need to search the tables of standards to find out how that corresponds to particular format rules... or you need to call operating system functions to do the work for you, which means hooking in a mex or dll.

It would not surprise me if there are Python functions available though.

[Stephen23]

"It would not surprise me if there are Python functions available though."

Of course: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/32171-function-to-format-number-as-currency#answer_431931

[dpb]

This got bumped back up by another comment...

... But then what? Notice that the entries are not all the same size. Do you want to put them into fixed-width columns? Should they be left-aligned? Right-aligned? Decimal-place aligned?"

Indeed. In the Java=based routine I built I augmented all to the length of the longest or an optional input length value, retaining the currency symbol as the first character in the string. This ends up right-aligning which is the same as decimal point alignment for fixed-width font. Proportional fonts without specific field kerning are a nighmare, of course, for preparing tables.

Answer 2

[Jan]

function S = Sep1000Str(N)
S = sprintf('$%.2f', N);
S(2, length(S) - 6:-3:2) = ',';
S = transpose(S(S ~= char(0)));

[Geoff]

I like this. By far the most efficient MatLab-based answer.

[Manuel]

Indeed. Nice answer!

[Ian]

Very elegant answer! Note that values of N in the range from -100 to -199 are an edge case which can produce formats such as $-,100.00

[tegar palyus fiqar]

thank you.......

[Andrew Potvin]

Integrating Ian's comment into Jan's solution.

function S = Sep1000Str(N)
S = sprintf('$%.2f', N);
S(2,length(S)-6:-3:3) = ','; 
% I.e. only the end index changed in above
S = transpose(S(S ~= char(0)));

Answer 3

[Stephen23]

Just one simple Python call:

num = 98765432.1;
str = char(py.locale.currency(num, pyargs('grouping',py.True)))

str = '$98,765,432.10'

Or alternatively a simple regular expression:

str = sprintf('\x24%.2f',num); % \x24 = unicode dollar symbol
regexprep(str,'\d{1,3}(?=(\d{3})+\>)','$&,')

ans = '$98,765,432.10'

Change the currency symbol as required:

str = sprintf('\x20AC%.2f',num); % \x20AC = unicode euro symbol
regexprep(str,'\d{1,3}(?=(\d{3})+\>)','$&,')

ans = '€98,765,432.10'

Can easily be defined as a function:

fun = @(n,c) regexprep(sprintf('%s%.2f',c,n),'\d{1,3}(?=(\d{3})+\>)','$&,');
fun(1234.5,'£')

ans = '£1,234.50'

[Catherine]

thanks stephen23

Answer 4

[Ned Gulley]

Using SPRINTF is the way to go, but getting the commas right is tricky. I turned this into a question for Cody to see what folks suggest there. Problem 495. Formatting currency numbers.

Here's my clunky MATLAB answer, but I like Oleg's Java solution better.

function str = disp_currency(amt)
    str = fliplr(sprintf('%10.2f',abs(amt)));
    str = regexprep(str,' ','');
    str = str(sort([1:length(str) 7:3:length(str)]));
    str(7:4:length(str)) = ',';
    str = ['$' fliplr(str)];
    if amt<0
        str = ['(' str ')'];
    end   
end

[Nicholas Copsey]

can I pass an array into this function and have it work?

[Walter Roberson]

No, but you can

arrayfun(@disp_currency, YourArray, 'uniform', 0)

The output would be a cell array of character vectors, the same size as the input array.

Answer 5

[Steven Lord]

If you want all the numbers displayed by your code to appear as currency, use format bank.

[Walter Roberson]

this would not give you a currency symbol, and uses North American decimal notation .

[Laura Lennuyeux-Comnene]

i think that is my favourite answer so far! although will have to check out help! to figure out how to use it ...

[dpb]

Indeed. Plus, it applies to everything, not just the currency variable(s).

I stumbled over this thread while looking for the same need for figure labels -- and first found Yair Altman's Undocumented site that illustrates the Java solution. That works nicely with the arrayfun solution as shown by Walter that can be packaged as a little utility routine.

BUT -- in this day and age, to not have such available in a much more usable and user-friendly manner is simply not acceptable state of affairs. Particularly the table object should be able to set a format by variable even though it isn't practical at the command window globally.

As the regulars are aware, I've been fiddling with the financial spreadsheets of the local community college Foundation for past couple of years in building some tools for them while we are still in transition to a real accounting package, plus we'll need to be able to retrieve data from the historical files for a long time going forward. In doing that I use the MATLAB table to retrieve the data from the spreadsheets, manipulate it and then put it back or create new ones. At the command window when doing this I do use format bank, format short, but it has the drawback that there are often tables with other variables like IDs or the like that are integral and then they're also shown with the two decimal places. It's not fatal, but annoying.

Answer 6

[Geoff]

Hehe, everyone's got a different function. I wrote a pretty inefficient tail-recursive solution, which might not be the "MatLab way"... Jan's seems the best that uses MatLab features, but Oleg's would be the most correct. Some locales interchange the dot and comma (and I think sprintf will follow the locale for the '%.2f' part), so everyone else's answer (including mine) is just a fun hack =)

% eg: num2currency( 123456.789 );
function [s] = num2currency (n, idx)
    if isnumeric(n)
        nstr = sprintf('$%.2f', n);
        s = num2currency( nstr, length(nstr) - 5 );
    elseif ~ischar(n) || nargin ~= 2
        error( 'Invalid parameters' );
    elseif idx < 3
        s = n;
    else
        s = num2currency( [n(1:idx-1) ',' n(idx:end)], idx-3 );
    end
end