Java override locale setting for specific locale

Question

I'm using NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance().format(amount) to format currency from a BigDecimal to a string. This works as expected the problem is that our main target is the dutch market and the default dutch formatting is strange.

Let me explain, when formatting -125 I get "€ 125-" for dutch (expected was "-€125"). Uk works as expected giving "-£125.50".

I could check if the locale is Dutch and then supply a pattern each time I want to format decimals. But I would prefer a solution that overrides the dutch formatting settings. I was thinking about something like the following:

Locale nlLocale = new Locale("nl", "NL");
NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(new Locale("nl", "NL")).setFormatPattern("€ #");

So that each time I use the dutch locale when formatting I get my custom format. Does a similar solution exists?

Why do you want to change the Dutch formatting? Won't you confuse them by choosing a non-standard formatting option (for the Dutch that is). — Dunes
I'm used close / similair classes for Swing GUI, you can be able to create own matrix for number as Fractions too — mKorbel
@Dunes the users expect a different format than java is providing for dutch (the minus symbol is expected to be infront of the nr, not behind). mKorbel, I thought about wrapping each call to format, this will be my last resort but I hope I can just override some settings for specific locales — Rob

Stephen C Stephen C · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-27T10:29:14

Leaving aside the question of whether that particular format is "correct" or not, the way to change the currency instance for the "nl" locale is to implement and configure a custom LocaleServiceProvider for the number format service. (The provider class needs to subclass NumberFormatProvider, but the superclass javadoc explains how to configure the provider.)

The provider needs to return a non-standard NumberFormat instance for the particular case you are concerned about, but (presumably) delegate to the default provider in other cases.

Java override locale setting for specific locale

2 Answers