Parse value with Currency symbol

Question

I have looked to multiple SO questions on parsing currency, the best (recommended) way seems to be the one I'm trying below:

var payout = decimal.Parse("$2.10", NumberStyles.Currency | NumberStyles.AllowDecimalPoint);

However, it throws and exception: Input string is not in the correct format.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong?

EDIT

Thanks for the answers. Additional info: the hard-coded currency value I gave was just an example. I have a list of currencies:

€2,66

$2.10

$5.55

etc.

I cannot determine the culture info in advance. Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can try like this:

decimal currencyValue;
string inputCurrency = "$12.6";
if (decimal.TryParse(inputCurrency, NumberStyles.Currency, CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture("en-US"), out currencyValue))
  {
      // proceed with currencyValue
  }
else 
  {
      //Show error ; Conversion failed
  }

For dealing with all currencies you can use the following:

        Dictionary<char, string> currencyCulture = new Dictionary<char, string>();
        currencyCulture.Add('$', "en-US");
        currencyCulture.Add('€', "en-IE");
        // populate all posible values here
        decimal currencyValue;
        string inputCurrency = "€2,66";
        char currencySymbol= inputCurrency.ToCharArray()[0];
        CultureInfo currentCulture= CultureInfo.CreateSpecificCulture(currencyCulture[currencySymbol]);
        if (decimal.TryParse(inputCurrency, NumberStyles.Currency, currentCulture, out currencyValue))
        {
            // proceed with currencyValue
        }
        else 
        {
         //Show error ; Conversion failed
        }

You can choose culture Names from here

Answer 2

Similar approach @un-lucky mentioned as one of the answer, I tried making it generic and work for every Symbol/Format

public static decimal ParseCurrencyWithSymbol(string input)
{
    var cultures = CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures)
        .GroupBy(c=> c.NumberFormat.CurrencySymbol)
        .ToDictionary(c=> c.Key, c=>c.First());


    var culture = cultures.FirstOrDefault(c=>input.Contains(c.Key));

    decimal result = 0;
    if(!culture.Equals(default(KeyValuePair<string,CultureInfo>)))
    {
        result = decimal.Parse(input, NumberStyles.Currency | NumberStyles.AllowDecimalPoint, culture.Value);
    }
    else
    {
        if( !decimal.TryParse(input, out result))
        {
            throw new Exception("Invalid number format");
        }
    }

    return result;
}

Usage

decimal output = ParseCurrencyWithSymbol("$2.10");

Working Code

Answer 3

How about a CleanCurrency method?

/// Loops each char in the string and returns only numbers, . or ,
static double? CleanCurrency(string currencyStringIn) {
  string temp = "";
  int n;
  for (int i = 0; i < currencyStringIn.Length; i++) {
    string c = currencyStringIn.Substring(i, 1);
    if (int.TryParse(c, out n) || c == "." || c == ",") {
      temp += c;
    }
  }
  if (temp == "") {
    return null;
  else {
    return double.Parse("0" + temp);
  }
}

The idea here being to just get an actual number regardless of what the string content is.

double? payout = CleanCurrency("$3.50");

Answer 4

I've expounded on Hari Prasad's answer. With this you can minimize the culture result. Update "SupportedCultures" with the ones you might use in your app.

    private static readonly List<string> SupportedCultures = new List<string> {"en-US", "en-GB", "fr-FR"};

    public static void Main()
    {
        var (amount, culture) = ParseCurrencyWithSymbol("$256.12");
        Console.WriteLine($"{culture?.Name} | {amount}");

        var (amount2, culture2) = ParseCurrencyWithSymbol("£389.17");
        Console.WriteLine($"{culture2?.Name} | {amount2}");

        var (amount3, culture3) = ParseCurrencyWithSymbol("€421,10");
        Console.WriteLine(culture3 != null ? $"{culture3.Name} | {amount3}" : "Failed!");
    }

    public static Tuple<decimal?, CultureInfo> ParseCurrencyWithSymbol(string input)
    {
        var culture = CultureInfo.GetCultures(CultureTypes.AllCultures)
            .Where(x => SupportedCultures.Contains(x.Name))
            .FirstOrDefault(c => input.Contains(c.NumberFormat.CurrencySymbol));

        if (culture == null) return new Tuple<decimal?, CultureInfo>(null, null);

        return new Tuple<decimal?, CultureInfo>(decimal.Parse(input,
            NumberStyles.Currency | NumberStyles.AllowCurrencySymbol |
            NumberStyles.AllowDecimalPoint | NumberStyles.AllowThousands, culture), culture);
    }

Answer 5

Pertinent to your particular case, you may use the following code snippet:

var payout = decimal.Parse("$2.10".Replace("$",""));

If you don't know what the currency symbol would be, then try the following solution:

string _money = "$2.10";
var payout = decimal.Parse(_money.Substring(1));

Dealing with commas and decimal points is much more difficult: if this is the issue, refer to the solution given by member @un-lucky.

Hope this may help.