Localization for .NET Succinctly^®
by Jonas Gauffin

CHAPTER 6

Currency/Money

There is no built-in support for currencies in .NET. The recommended approach is to use the decimal data type. That can however be a pain if you have to support multiple currencies.

static void Main(string[] args)

{

decimal shoppingCartTotal = 100;

var us = new CultureInfo("en-US");

Console.WriteLine("Is it {0} ..", shoppingCartTotal.ToString("C0", us));

var sv = new CultureInfo("sv-SE");

Console.WriteLine(".. or {0}", shoppingCartTotal.ToString("C0", sv));

}

The result is shown in Figure 37:

Currency formatting

Currency formatting

The ”0” in “C0” is for no decimals.

Handling multiple currencies

If you have to manage multiple currencies, always make sure that you include the currency identifier in all classes that contain amounts. Otherwise it’s easy to use the incorrect currency (which might be worth less).

A better approach would be to create a Money struct that can be used instead. The struct can be found in the Appendix.

class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

var amountSek = new Money(500, "sv-se");

var amountUsd = new Money(500, "en-us");

Console.WriteLine("Is '{0}' equal '{1}'? {2}", amountSek, amountUsd, amountSek.Equals(amountUsd));

amountSek += 500;

Console.WriteLine("New amount: " + amountSek);

Console.ReadLine();

}

The result follows:

Using the money struct

Using the money struct

JavaScript

It might surprise you that JavaScript itself has quite good support for currency. Some initial attempts might look like this:

var amount = 5.382;

document.writeln("Total amount: " + amount.toFixed(2));

</script>

We get the following result:

JavaScript money

JavaScript money

However, there is a much more elegant way:

var amount = 5.382;

document.writeln("Total amount: " + amount.toLocaleString('sv-se', { style: 'currency' }));

</script>

This will produce the following output:

Formatted money

Formatted money

Notice that the decimal separator is correct for my language, and that the correct currency is attached.

Also notice that again, IE uses the OS (Windows) culture.

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Currency/Money

Handling multiple currencies

JavaScript

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