DecimalFormat is a concrete subclass of NumberFormat that formats decimal numbers. It has a variety of features designed to make it possible to parse and format numbers in any locale, including support for Western, Arabic, and Indic digits. It also supports different kinds of numbers, including integers (123), fixed-point numbers (123.4), scientific notation (1.23E4), percentages (12%), and currency amounts ($123). All of these can be localized.

To obtain a NumberFormat for a specific locale, including the default locale, call one of NumberFormat's factory methods, such as getInstance(). In general, do not call the DecimalFormat constructors directly, since the NumberFormat factory methods may return subclasses other than DecimalFormat. If you need to customize the format object, do something like this:

NumberFormat f = NumberFormat.getInstance(loc);
if (f instanceof DecimalFormat) {
    ((DecimalFormat) f).setDecimalSeparatorAlwaysShown(true);
}

A DecimalFormat comprises a pattern and a set of symbols. The pattern may be set directly using applyPattern(), or indirectly using the API methods. The symbols are stored in a DecimalFormatSymbols object. When using the NumberFormat factory methods, the pattern and symbols are read from localized ResourceBundles.

Patterns

Pattern:
        PositivePattern
        PositivePattern ; NegativePattern
PositivePattern:
        Prefixopt Number Suffixopt
NegativePattern:
        Prefixopt Number Suffixopt
Prefix:
        any Unicode characters except \uFFFE, \uFFFF, and special characters
Suffix:
        any Unicode characters except \uFFFE, \uFFFF, and special characters
Number:
        Integer Exponentopt
        Integer . Fraction Exponentopt
Integer:
        MinimumInteger
        #
        # Integer
        # , Integer
MinimumInteger:
        0
        0 MinimumInteger
        0 , MinimumInteger
Fraction:
        MinimumFractionopt OptionalFractionopt
MinimumFraction:
        0 MinimumFractionopt
OptionalFraction:
        # OptionalFractionopt
Exponent:
        E MinimumExponent
MinimumExponent:
        0 MinimumExponentopt

A DecimalFormat pattern contains a positive and negative subpattern, for example, "#,##0.00;(#,##0.00)". Each subpattern has a prefix, numeric part, and suffix. The negative subpattern is optional; if absent, then the positive subpattern prefixed with the localized minus sign ('-' in most locales) is used as the negative subpattern. That is, "0.00" alone is equivalent to "0.00;-0.00". If there is an explicit negative subpattern, it serves only to specify the negative prefix and suffix; the number of digits, minimal digits, and other characteristics are all the same as the positive pattern. That means that "#,##0.0#;(#)" produces precisely the same behavior as "#,##0.0#;(#,##0.0#)".

The prefixes, suffixes, and various symbols used for infinity, digits, thousands separators, decimal separators, etc. may be set to arbitrary values, and they will appear properly during formatting. However, care must be taken that the symbols and strings do not conflict, or parsing will be unreliable. For example, either the positive and negative prefixes or the suffixes must be distinct for DecimalFormat.parse() to be able to distinguish positive from negative values. (If they are identical, then DecimalFormat will behave as if no negative subpattern was specified.) Another example is that the decimal separator and thousands separator should be distinct characters, or parsing will be impossible.

The grouping separator is commonly used for thousands, but in some countries it separates ten-thousands. The grouping size is a constant number of digits between the grouping characters, such as 3 for 100,000,000 or 4 for 1,0000,0000. If you supply a pattern with multiple grouping characters, the interval between the last one and the end of the integer is the one that is used. So "#,##,###,####" == "######,####" == "##,####,####".

Special Pattern Characters

Many characters in a pattern are taken literally; they are matched during parsing and output unchanged during formatting. Special characters, on the other hand, stand for other characters, strings, or classes of characters. They must be quoted, unless noted otherwise, if they are to appear in the prefix or suffix as literals.

The characters listed here are used in non-localized patterns. Localized patterns use the corresponding characters taken from this formatter's DecimalFormatSymbols object instead, and these characters lose their special status. Two exceptions are the currency sign and quote, which are not localized.

Scientific Notation

Numbers in scientific notation are expressed as the product of a mantissa and a power of ten, for example, 1234 can be expressed as 1.234 x 10^3. The mantissa is often in the range 1.0 ≤ x < 10.0, but it need not be. DecimalFormat can be instructed to format and parse scientific notation only via a pattern; there is currently no factory method that creates a scientific notation format. In a pattern, the exponent character immediately followed by one or more digit characters indicates scientific notation. Example: "0.###E0" formats the number 1234 as "1.234E3".

• The number of digit characters after the exponent character gives the minimum exponent digit count. There is no maximum. Negative exponents are formatted using the localized minus sign, not the prefix and suffix from the pattern. This allows patterns such as "0.###E0 m/s".
• The minimum and maximum number of integer digits are interpreted together:
  • If the maximum number of integer digits is greater than their minimum number and greater than 1, it forces the exponent to be a multiple of the maximum number of integer digits, and the minimum number of integer digits to be interpreted as 1. The most common use of this is to generate engineering notation, in which the exponent is a multiple of three, e.g., "##0.#####E0". Using this pattern, the number 12345 formats to "12.345E3", and 123456 formats to "123.456E3".
  • Otherwise, the minimum number of integer digits is achieved by adjusting the exponent. Example: 0.00123 formatted with "00.###E0" yields "12.3E-4".
• The number of significant digits in the mantissa is the sum of the minimum integer and maximum fraction digits, and is unaffected by the maximum integer digits. For example, 12345 formatted with "##0.##E0" is "12.3E3". To show all digits, set the significant digits count to zero. The number of significant digits does not affect parsing.
• Exponential patterns may not contain grouping separators.

Rounding

Digits

Special Values

NaN is formatted as a string, which typically has a single character \uFFFD. This string is determined by the DecimalFormatSymbols object. This is the only value for which the prefixes and suffixes are not used.

Infinity is formatted as a string, which typically has a single character \u221E, with the positive or negative prefixes and suffixes applied. The infinity string is determined by the DecimalFormatSymbols object.

Negative zero ("-0") parses to

• BigDecimal(0) if isParseBigDecimal() is true,
• Long(0) if isParseBigDecimal() is false and isParseIntegerOnly() is true,
• Double(-0.0) if both isParseBigDecimal() and isParseIntegerOnly() are false.

Synchronization

Decimal formats are generally not synchronized. It is recommended to create separate format instances for each thread. If multiple threads access a format concurrently, it must be synchronized externally.

Example

<strong>// Print out a number using the localized number, integer, currency,
// and percent format for each locale</strong>
Locale[] locales = NumberFormat.getAvailableLocales();
double myNumber = -1234.56;
NumberFormat form;
for (int j = 0; j < 4; ++j) {
    System.out.println("FORMAT");
    for (int i = 0; i < locales.length; ++i) {
        if (locales[i].getCountry().length() == 0) {
           continue; // Skip language-only locales
        }
        System.out.print(locales[i].getDisplayName());
        switch (j) {
        case 0:
            form = NumberFormat.getInstance(locales[i]); break;
        case 1:
            form = NumberFormat.getIntegerInstance(locales[i]); break;
        case 2:
            form = NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(locales[i]); break;
        default:
            form = NumberFormat.getPercentInstance(locales[i]); break;
        }
        if (form instanceof DecimalFormat) {
            System.out.print(": " + ((DecimalFormat) form).toPattern());
        }
        System.out.print(" -> " + form.format(myNumber));
        try {
            System.out.println(" -> " + form.parse(form.format(myNumber)));
        } catch (ParseException e) {}
    }
}

Creates a DecimalFormat using the default pattern and symbols for the default FORMAT locale. This is a convenient way to obtain a DecimalFormat when internationalization is not the main concern.

To obtain standard formats for a given locale, use the factory methods on NumberFormat such as getNumberInstance. These factories will return the most appropriate sub-class of NumberFormat for a given locale.

Creates a DecimalFormat using the given pattern and the symbols for the default FORMAT locale. This is a convenient way to obtain a DecimalFormat when internationalization is not the main concern.

To obtain standard formats for a given locale, use the factory methods on NumberFormat such as getNumberInstance. These factories will return the most appropriate sub-class of NumberFormat for a given locale.

Creates a DecimalFormat using the given pattern and symbols. Use this constructor when you need to completely customize the behavior of the format.

To obtain standard formats for a given locale, use the factory methods on NumberFormat such as getInstance or getCurrencyInstance. If you need only minor adjustments to a standard format, you can modify the format returned by a NumberFormat factory method.

Formats a number and appends the resulting text to the given string buffer. The number can be of any subclass of Number.

This implementation uses the maximum precision permitted.

Formats an Object producing an AttributedCharacterIterator. You can use the returned AttributedCharacterIterator to build the resulting String, as well as to determine information about the resulting String.

Each attribute key of the AttributedCharacterIterator will be of type NumberFormat.Field, with the attribute value being the same as the attribute key.

Parses text from a string to produce a Number.

The method attempts to parse text starting at the index given by pos. If parsing succeeds, then the index of pos is updated to the index after the last character used (parsing does not necessarily use all characters up to the end of the string), and the parsed number is returned. The updated pos can be used to indicate the starting point for the next call to this method. If an error occurs, then the index of pos is not changed, the error index of pos is set to the index of the character where the error occurred, and null is returned.

The subclass returned depends on the value of isParseBigDecimal() as well as on the string being parsed.

• If isParseBigDecimal() is false (the default), most integer values are returned as Long objects, no matter how they are written: "17" and "17.000" both parse to Long(17). Values that cannot fit into a Long are returned as Doubles. This includes values with a fractional part, infinite values, NaN, and the value -0.0. DecimalFormat does not decide whether to return a Double or a Long based on the presence of a decimal separator in the source string. Doing so would prevent integers that overflow the mantissa of a double, such as "-9,223,372,036,854,775,808.00", from being parsed accurately.

  Callers may use the Number methods doubleValue, longValue, etc., to obtain the type they want.

• If isParseBigDecimal() is true, values are returned as BigDecimal objects. The values are the ones constructed by BigDecimal.BigDecimal(String) for corresponding strings in locale-independent format. The special cases negative and positive infinity and NaN are returned as Double instances holding the values of the corresponding Double constants.

DecimalFormat parses all Unicode characters that represent decimal digits, as defined by Character.digit(). In addition, DecimalFormat also recognizes as digits the ten consecutive characters starting with the localized zero digit defined in the DecimalFormatSymbols object.

Get the positive prefix.

Examples: +123, $123, sFr123

Set the positive prefix.

Examples: +123, $123, sFr123

Get the negative prefix.

Examples: -123, ($123) (with negative suffix), sFr-123

Set the negative prefix.

Examples: -123, ($123) (with negative suffix), sFr-123

Get the positive suffix.

Example: 123%

Set the positive suffix.

Example: 123%

Get the negative suffix.

Examples: -123%, ($123) (with positive suffixes)

Set the negative suffix.

Examples: 123%

Sets the multiplier for use in percent, per mille, and similar formats. For a percent format, set the multiplier to 100 and the suffixes to have '%' (for Arabic, use the Arabic percent sign). For a per mille format, set the multiplier to 1000 and the suffixes to have '\u2030'.

Example: with multiplier 100, 1.23 is formatted as "123", and "123" is parsed into 1.23.

Allows you to get the behavior of the decimal separator with integers. (The decimal separator will always appear with decimals.)

Example: Decimal ON: 12345 → 12345.; OFF: 12345 → 12345

Allows you to set the behavior of the decimal separator with integers. (The decimal separator will always appear with decimals.)

Example: Decimal ON: 12345 → 12345.; OFF: 12345 → 12345

Apply the given pattern to this Format object. A pattern is a short-hand specification for the various formatting properties. These properties can also be changed individually through the various setter methods.

There is no limit to integer digits set by this routine, since that is the typical end-user desire; use setMaximumInteger if you want to set a real value. For negative numbers, use a second pattern, separated by a semicolon

Example "#,#00.0#" → 1,234.56

This means a minimum of 2 integer digits, 1 fraction digit, and a maximum of 2 fraction digits.

Example: "#,#00.0#;(#,#00.0#)" for negatives in parentheses.

In negative patterns, the minimum and maximum counts are ignored; these are presumed to be set in the positive pattern.

Apply the given pattern to this Format object. The pattern is assumed to be in a localized notation. A pattern is a short-hand specification for the various formatting properties. These properties can also be changed individually through the various setter methods.

There is no limit to integer digits set by this routine, since that is the typical end-user desire; use setMaximumInteger if you want to set a real value. For negative numbers, use a second pattern, separated by a semicolon

Example "#,#00.0#" → 1,234.56

This means a minimum of 2 integer digits, 1 fraction digit, and a maximum of 2 fraction digits.

Example: "#,#00.0#;(#,#00.0#)" for negatives in parentheses.

In negative patterns, the minimum and maximum counts are ignored; these are presumed to be set in the positive pattern.