Normalize Number Delimiter for different locales with Javascript

Working with a Web-Application based on Java/Spring and FTL / JSP on the Template side you might know that you got some build in localization support(e.g. for number formatting). Various locales(java example locales). result in different number formatting:

• de_DE,german - 1.000,30 €
• cs_CZ,czech - 1 000,30 Kč
• en_GB,english - £1,000.30
• ...

Sometimes this is not that great

Currently some external Affiliate network requires us to handover prices as a standard float number (e.g: 1000.3) via their tracking code snippet.

How you should deal with that

--> Similar question on the Freemarker Templating Q&A
they are differentiating between "computer audience and human audience" in our example ${someLocalizedNumber?c}will do the trick(Freemarker c builtin reference ) This takes the plain float below all (Spring) Localization and exposes this again as an String.

If you can't do that - Javascript to the help!

Normalize the Delimiter with Javascript

So i wrote a little script that deals with that issue and gets you your floaty number back:

function normalizeDelimiter(str){
    var n = "", delim = false;
    for (var i = str.length-1; i >= 0; i--){
        //preserve decimal delimiter - remove all others
        if(!delim && !isInt(str[i])){
            n = "." + n;
            delim = true;
        }else{
            n= (isInt(str[i]) ? str[i] : "") + n;
        }
    }
  return parseFloat(n);  
}

Normalize Delimiter takes a String that contains a (valid) Number and transform into a float.
Feed it with e.g.

'1.234,56'
'1 234,56'
'1#000#01'
'0.2'
'22'

Run it

normalizeDelimiter('1.234,56')

and you get:

1234.56
1234.56
1000.01
0.2
22

It handles the normal stuff as well as the ones that have even strange delimiters

To make use of the code you'll need the isInt() function

// check if given input is of type integer
function isInt(input){
    return !isNaN(input)&&parseInt(input)==input;
}

Demo:

All assembled and ready to run @ jsFiddlehttp://jsfiddle.net/9w5AQ/