How can I use spilt to parse and remove multiple currency signs

Question

I have a requirement where I need to compare two fields that contain a total amount.

One of the fields represents the amount like $1000 (the currency symbol followed by amount. Eg. For US $100, For UK €100).

I need to parse the field that can have amounts from different countries. How can I do that using JQuery?

Following is the jQuery I am using currently:

var Amt= parseFloat(total.split('$'));

The total field is a filed that can contain the amount in dollars or Euro. The present implementations works fine for USA currency. Is there any way i can make it work for both Euro and Dollar — user5113176, Jan 18 '17 at 20:11
Possible duplicate of [How to convert a currency string to a double with jQuery or Javascript?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/559112/how-to-convert-a-currency-string-to-a-double-with-jquery-or-javascript) — random_user_name, Jan 18 '17 at 20:11
@Mr.Alien : I have [1] index in, sorry didnt include it in the question — user5113176, Jan 18 '17 at 20:12
You are asking the wrong question. What you WANT to ask is "how do I remove the currency symbol so that I can get the amount?". That has been asked / answered, see my duplicate comment above. — random_user_name, Jan 18 '17 at 20:12
By they way, regexes are part of javascript, not a jQuery addition. — David Knipe, Jan 18 '17 at 22:24

Richard Hamilton · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-18T20:58:31.927

The split function can take in a regular expression. Since $ sign is a special character it must be escaped with a backslash. For another currency symbol, we use the | symbol to represent OR.

The split function will return an array and since we're splitting on a currency symbol, the symbol gets converted to an empty string "". In this case, filter will only show strings with a truthy value.

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for, but I made a snippet that I think will be helpful.

var euroTotal  = document.getElementById("euro-cost");
var usTotal    = document.getElementById("us-cost");
var peruTotal  = document.getElementById("peru-cost");
var euroResult = document.getElementById("euro-result");
var usResult   = document.getElementById("us-result");
var peruResult = document.getElementById("peru-result");

// Create a regex with currency symbols. Separate symbols with |
var moneyRegex = /[A-Z]{0,2}\$|€|¥|₩|£|CHF|¢|฿|L|Q|₭|₮|₨|₱|Kč|Ft|Rp|лв|RM|MT|₦|Gs|zł|lei|S\/\./;

euroResult.innerHTML = `Parsed, ${euroTotal.innerHTML} equals: ` +
                     parseFloat(euroTotal.innerHTML.split(moneyRegex).filter(Boolean));

usResult.innerHTML = `Parsed, ${usTotal.innerHTML} equals: ` + 
                     parseFloat(usTotal.innerHTML.split(moneyRegex).filter(Boolean));

peruResult.innerHTML = `Parsed, ${peruTotal.innerHTML} equals: ` + 
parseFloat(peruTotal.innerHTML.split(moneyRegex).filter(Boolean));

<h3>Item Costs</h3>

<p>This item costs <span id="euro-cost">€400</span></p>
<p>This item costs <span id="us-cost">$300</span></p>
<p>This item costs <span id="peru-cost">S/.200</span></p>

<h3>Parsing Currency Values</h3>

<p id="euro-result"></p>
<p id="us-result"></p>
<p id="peru-result"></p>

<p><strong>Feel free to play around with different currencies</strong></p>

You can play around with some other currency symbols, and this function should remove them

Thanks , it works fine. I have another Currency (S/.). How do i include it in the above statement. — user5113176, Jan 18 '17 at 20:22
For this Currency symbol S/. , as it has (/) and (.), the above does not work. — user5113176, Jan 18 '17 at 20:38

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 18 '17 at 22:41

I don't think split is the best way to do this. I'd use match or exec. Plagiarising and modifying Richard Hamilton's regex:

var match moneyString.match(/([A-Z]{0,2}\$|CHF|[€¥₩£¢฿LQ₭₮₨₱₦]|Kč|Ft|Rp|лв|RM|MT|Gs|zł|lei|S\/\.)(.*)/);
if (! match) {
    // handle error
} else {
    var currency = match[1];
    var amt = parseFloat(match[2]);
}

This approach be modified to do stricter syntax checking, allow a - before the currency symbol, restrict to 2 digits after the decimal point, check that the currency symbol is right, make sure you're matching the whole string, etc.

How can I use spilt to parse and remove multiple currency signs

2 Answers2