German number separators using format language on OSX?

Question

Update: The answers show so far that it seems to be a platform-related bug on OSX that has to do with the specific locale settings as they don't fully support grouping numbers.

Update 2: I have just opened an issue on Python's bug tracker. Let's see if there is a solution to this problem.

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I want to format integer and float numbers according to the German numbering convention. This is possible using the format language and the presentation type n but fails on my platform.

• Platform: OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion)
• Python: 2.7.3 64-bit (v2.7.3:70274d53c1dd, Apr 9 2012, 20:52:43) [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin

Examples:

• 1234 => 1.234
• 1234.56 => 1.234,56
• 1000000 => 1.000.000

What I have tried so far:

1. Setting the German locale

   import locale
   locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'de_DE')
   

2. The format specification option , only recognizes the English format.

   '{:,}'.format(1234)
   '1,234'
   
   '{:,}'.format(1234.56)
   '1,234.56'
   
   '{:,}'.format(1000000)
   '1,000,000'
   

3. According to the Python docs, the integer and float presentation type n is supposed to do what I want but it doesn't.

    '{:n}'.format(1234)
    '1234'
   
    '{:n}'.format(1234.56)
    '1234,56'  # at least the comma was set correctly here
   
    '{:n}'.format(1000000)
    '1000000'
   
    '{:n}'.format(12345769.56)
    '1,23458e+07'  # it's doing weird things for large floats
   

4. Some more examples and comparisons inspired by @J.F.Sebastian:

   for n in [1234, 1234.56, 1000000, 12345769.56]:
       print('{0:,} {0:n}'.format(n))
       fmt, val = "%d %f", (n, n)
       print(fmt % val)
       print(locale.format_string(fmt, val))
       print(locale.format_string(fmt, val, grouping=True))
       print('-'*60)
   

   This yields the following incorrect results on my platform:

       1,234 1234
       1234 1234.000000
       1234 1234,000000
       1234 1234,000000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
       1,234.56 1234,56
       1234 1234.560000
       1234 1234,560000
       1234 1234,560000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
       1,000,000 1000000
       1000000 1000000.000000
       1000000 1000000,000000
       1000000 1000000,000000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
       12,345,769.56 1,23458e+07
       12345769 12345769.560000
       12345769 12345769,560000
       12345769 12345769,560000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
   

   The correct results which I'm not getting would look like that:

       1,234 1.234
       1234 1234.000000
       1234 1234,000000
       1.234 1.234,000000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
       1,234.56 1.234,56
       1234 1234.560000
       1234 1234,560000
       1.234 1.234,560000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
       1,000,000 1.000.000
       1000000 1000000.000000
       1000000 1000000,000000
       1.000.000 1.000.000,000000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
       12,345,769.56 1,23458e+07 
       12345769 12345769.560000
       12345769 12345769,560000
       12.345.769 12.345.769,560000
       ------------------------------------------------------------
   

Do you have a solution for me using the format language only? Is there any way to trick the locale settings on my platform to accept grouping?

Answer 1

Super ugly, but technically answers the question:

From PEP 378:

'{:,}'.format(1234.56).replace(",", "X").replace(".", ",").replace("X", ".")
'1.234,56'