grouping in module 'locale'

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:46:13 -0200, Roman Bertle <bertle at smoerz.org>  
escribi�:

> I try to format monetary values using the locale module, python2.5:

>>>> locale.localeconv()
> {... 'mon_thousands_sep': ' '
>>>> locale.currency(1234.5678, grouping=True, symbol=False)
> '1234,57'
>
> As you can see, the decimal point is correctly set to ','. But the
> grouping is not done, every 3 digits should be separated by space (' ').

> Using the 'de_DE.utf8' locale, ist works:
>>>> locale.currency(1234.5678, grouping=True, symbol=False)
> '1.234,57'
>
> The difference here is that thounds_sep is '.', not ' '. If we look at  
> the code
> of locale.py, revision 55038, lines 157-161, the inserted spaces are  
> later
> deleted again:
>
>         while seps:
>             sp = formatted.find(' ')
>             if sp == -1: break
>             formatted = formatted[:sp] + formatted[sp+1:]
>             seps -= 1

Looks like a bug, please report it at http://bugs.python.org
Only *leading* and *trailing* spaces should be removed, the code above  
removes spaces anywhere. This would be a better alternative:

     if seps:
         i = 0
         while seps and i<len(formatted) and formatted[i]==' ':
             seps -= 1
             i += 1
         formatted = formatted[i:]
     if seps:
         i = len(formatted)-1
         while seps and i>=0 and formatted[i]==' ':
             seps -= 1
             i -= 1
         formatted = formatted[:i+1]

Integers should be processed that way too:

py> locale.format('%10d', 1234567, True)
'   1.234.567'
(output has 12 characters, not 10)

Another issue: the code currently assumes that mon_thousands_sep and  
thousands_sep are single characters, but they might be longer. There  
should be a seps *= len(separator used) before the above whitespace  
removal.

I'll try to make a patch tomorrow.

-- 
Gabriel Genellina