printf with currency symbols

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Bryan R Harris - 26 Oct 2009 16:57 GMT

Is there a good way to do printf's with currency symbols?

I've tried this:

printf "Total: \$%10.2f\n", $total;

But it puts the dollar sign way out front (ugly). I want it to look like:

Total: $24.15

Is there a way to do this without getting all messy like this?

printf "Total:%10s\n", "\$".sprintf(%.2f,$total);

- Bryan

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Robert Citek - 26 Oct 2009 17:27 GMT

Is this what you are looking for:

$ perl -e '$total = 24.15 ; printf "Total: \$%.2f\n", $total; '

Regards,
- Robert

> Is there a good way to do printf's with currency symbols?
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> printf "Total:%10s\n", "\$".sprintf(%.2f,$total);

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Jim Gibson - 26 Oct 2009 17:29 GMT

> Is there a good way to do printf's with currency symbols?
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Total: $24.15

You can add a minus sign to the format descriptor to left-justify the field:

%-10.2f

However, if you do this and print more than one line, the decimal points may
not line up.

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Robert Citek - 26 Oct 2009 17:43 GMT

I see. You want the output to look something like this:

$ perl -e 'for(my $total = 24.15; $total <30000; $total *= 10) {
printf("Total:%10s\n", "\$" . sprintf("%.2f",$total)) ;} '
Total: $24.15
Total: $241.50
Total: $2415.00
Total: $24150.00

Not sure if there is a better way. My guess is that there is probably
some module to convert float to currency and then print it as a
string. But a quick Google didn't turn up anything.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Regards,
- Robert

> Is there a way to do this without getting all messy like this?
>
> printf "Total:%10s\n", "\$".sprintf(%.2f,$total);

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Shawn H Corey - 26 Oct 2009 19:34 GMT

> Not sure if there is a better way. My guess is that there is probably
> some module to convert float to currency and then print it as a
> string. But a quick Google didn't turn up anything.

Here' why (extracted from `perldoc perllocale`):

Category LC_MONETARY: Formatting of monetary amounts

The C standard defines the "LC_MONETARY" category, but no
function that is affected by its contents. (Those with experience of
standards committees will recognize that the working group decided to
punt on the issue.) Consequently, Perl takes no notice of it. If you
really want to use "LC_MONETARY", you can query its contents--see "The
localeconv function"--and use the information that it returns in your
application’s own formatting of currency amounts. However, you may well
find that the information, voluminous and complex though it may be,
still does not quite meet your requirements: currency formatting is a
hard nut to crack.

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Just my 0.00000002 million dollars worth,
Shawn

Programming is as much about organization and communication
as it is about coding.

I like Perl; it's the only language where you can bless your
thingy.

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Bryan R Harris - 26 Oct 2009 19:53 GMT

>> Not sure if there is a better way. My guess is that there is probably
>> some module to convert float to currency and then print it as a
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> still does not quite meet your requirements: currency formatting is a
> hard nut to crack.

That's what I needed to know -- thanks Shawn (and Jim and Robert).

- Bryan

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Bryan Harris
Sr. Systems Engineer II
Huntsville Operations Analysis & System Performance
Missile Systems, Raytheon Company
bh@raytheon.com
256.542.4632

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printf with currency symbols