Mark Dickinson's test code suggested a good, extensible approach to the problem. Here's the idea in a nutshell: format(value, format_spec='', conventions=None) 'calls value.__format__(format_spec, conventions)' Where conventions is an optional dictionary with formatting control values. Any value object can accept custom controls, but the names for standard ones would be taken from the standards provided by localeconv(): { 'decimal_point': '.', 'grouping': [3, 0], 'negative_sign': '-', 'positive_sign': '', 'thousands_sep': ','} The would let you store several locales using localeconv() and use them at will, thus solving the global variable and threading problems with locale: import locale loc = locale.getlocale() # get current locale locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'de_DE') DE = locale.localeconv() locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'en_US') US = locale.localeconv() locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, loc) # restore saved locale . . . format(x, '8,.f', DE) format(y, '8,d', US) It also lets you write your own conventions on the fly: DEB = dict(thousands_sep='_') # style for debugging EXT = dict(thousands_sep=',') # style for external display . . . format(x, '8.1f', DEB) format(y, '8d', EXT) Raymond