Re: format-number usage on international platform

Hi Nuri,

> BUT I know on Xalan 1.2.2 the comma worked correctly in that it
> meant to use the thousands separator of the platform and not literal
> meaning.

The meaning of characters in the format pattern you give as the second
argument to format-number() (e.g. '0', '#', ',', '.') are defined by a
decimal format. If you don't give a third argument for the
format-number() function then it should interpret the format pattern
according to the default decimal format. The default decimal format
defines a ',' (comma) as the grouping separator and a '.' (period) as
the decimal separator.

So whatever platform you're on, whatever internationalisation settings
you've got set, if you do:

  format-number(1234, '#,##0')

you should get '1,234'.

If you want to use different separators in a number, then you have to
*both* change the format pattern that you use as the second argument
of format-number() *and* change the decimal format that it uses. For
example, you could define a Turkish decimal format:

<xsl:decimal-format name="Turkish"
                    grouping-separator="." />

and then call format-number() explicitly referencing that decimal
format:

  format-number(1234, '#.##0', 'Turkish')

to get '1.234'.

Alternatively, you could redeclare the default decimal format to use
whatever separators you like:

<xsl:decimal-format grouping-separator="." />

in which case you don't need to use the third argument for
format-number() to get the Turkish formatting.

Cheers,

Jeni

---
Jeni Tennison
http://www.jenitennison.com/


 XSL-List info and archive:  http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list