The best way of converting comma decimal values to dot decimal values using culture info

Question

Hi i need to convert a decimal value based on the culture info. For EG :

If en-US culture the decimal value will be like 21.56 and in tr-TR which is turkey culture info , here the same value will be as 21,56

Si my requirement is to whatever the decimal value , but i need to get in en-US as default. I need my decimal value seperated by dot and i dont want the decimal value of comma.

I tried converting using the below code

                CultureInfo userCulture = new CultureInfo("tr-TR");
                string fromVisioAPI = "35,2083";
                string display = double.Parse(fromDb, userCulture).ToString();

and here the output was "35.2083" which was i expected, but here am hardcoding the tr-TR value and i dunno how many culture does the same comma and dot difference.

This was a normal replacement and i need to be a proper culture conversion

So what's the best way of converting comma decimal values to dot decimal values using culture info..?

Answer 1

You need to know the culture info for the data to parse. If that was static, you could simply hard code it or configure it in the app.config. Otherwise you could use CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.

To convert the values back to string you should use the ToString overload with a specific culture info:

var visioApiCulture = 
    new CultureInfo(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["VisioApiCulture"]);

or

var visioApiCulture = CultureInfo.CurrentCulture;

-

string fromVisioApi = "35,2083";

string display = double
    .Parse(fromVisioApi, visioApiCulture)
    .ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

Answer 2

Assuming the Visio API is running on the same computer as your code, then the Windows culture info that Visio is using is very likely the same as what your program is getting as its default. You can get the current culture from the CultureInfo.CurrentCulture property: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.cultureinfo.currentculture(v=vs.110).aspx

Answer 3

It think the below code can help you ..

public double? ConvertStringToDouble(string strDoubleValue)
{
    //Checking null
    if (strDoubleValue == null)
    {
        return null;
    }

    //Making trim
    strDoubleValue = strDoubleValue.Trim();

    //Checking empty
    if (strDoubleValue == string.Empty)
    {
        return null;
    }

    //If the amout treat dot(.) as decimal separator
    if (strDoubleValue.IndexOf('.')!=-1)
    {
        //If multiple . is present then the amount is invaid
        if (strDoubleValue.Count(o=>o=='.')>1)
        {
            return null;
        }

        //removing thousand separators
        //it might not be needed
        strDoubleValue = strDoubleValue.Replace(",", "");

        return ConvertPlainStringToDouble(strDoubleValue);
    }


    //If the amout treat dot(,) as decimal separator
    //then it must not use ',' as thousand separator
    if (strDoubleValue.Count(o => o == ',') > 1)
    {
        //removing thousand separators
        //it might not be needed
        strDoubleValue = strDoubleValue.Replace(",", "");
        return ConvertPlainStringToDouble(strDoubleValue);                
    }

    //Here will be logic that the string contains single comma , is treated here as 
    //deciaml separator or comma separator

    //int charCountBeforeComma = strDoubleValue.IndexOf(',');
    //int charCountAfterComma = strDoubleValue.Length - (charCountBeforeComma + 1);

    ////If charCountAfterComma is not in 3rd position than
    ////the comma cannot be thousand separator example: 458,5896
    //if (charCountAfterComma!=3)
    //{
    //    //removing thousand separators
    //    //it might not be needed
    //    strDoubleValue = strDoubleValue.Replace(",", ".");
    //    return ConvertPlainStringToDouble(strDoubleValue);   
    //}

    //if string having more than 3 char before comma like 4589,548
    //it means no thousand separator used else the amount should represent like this 4,589,548
    //you can use below code 
    //if (charCountBeforeComma>3)
    //{
    //    //removing thousand separators
    //    //it might not be needed
    //    strDoubleValue = strDoubleValue.Replace(",", "");
    //    return ConvertPlainStringToDouble(strDoubleValue);   
    //}

    //if all above missed than i am sorry              
    //it means the string is like 458,458 or 58,458 format
    //you need to put some logical condition here 
    //??????

}

private Double? ConvertPlainStringToDouble(string strPlainDoubleValue)
{            
    Double amount;
    if (Double.TryParse(strPlainDoubleValue, out amount))
    {
        return amount;
    }

    return null;
}

I tried to attend all logical condition to resolve the issue .. but in end .. there is something nee d to fill by you .. :)

Answer 4

You should use the universal format properties in the API - those don't depend on the culture setting.

For example, to get the formula of a cell, use FormulaU - this will keep all the numbers in the . means decimal point, , means thousands separator format.

Using Result should also work, since it's supposed to return a double, not a string - if you're getting a string, either you're using an incorrect interop library, or you're doing something wrong. You can use ResultStrU as a work-around, again, to get an universal format string.