Parse currency with symbol: Not all case working - Java

Question

I am using java.text.NumberFormat to parse String currency which has currency symbol. It is working for some cases while fails for other.

NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(Locale.FRANCE).parse("1 599,99 €"); //fails
NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(Locale.FRANCE).parse("599,99 €"); //works fine

Can somebody please explain why it is not working in first case? Is Joda-Money a better library for such type of parsing?

Answer 1

The reason that this might not work for you, is usage of invalid white space character.

The format class expect the char with code 160 witch is describe as "Non-breaking space", when you may pass the code 30 witch is "Space".

You can run this code to check it.

NumberFormat currencyInstance = NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(Locale.FRANCE);

String france = "1 599,99 €";
String format = currencyInstance.format(1599.99);
Number number = currencyInstance.parse(format);


System.out.println("France: " + format);
System.out.println("Format: " + format);
System.out.println("Number: " + number);

if(france.equals(format)) {
    number = currencyInstance.parse(france); // Must work;
    System.out.println(number);
} else {

    char[] fr = france.toCharArray();
    char[] ft = format.toCharArray();

    for(int i = 0; i < fr.length; i++) {
        if(fr[i] != ft[i]) {
            System.out.printf("The value on position %d are not equal. France: %d; Format: %d", i,(int)fr[i], (int)ft[i]);
        }
    }

}

Then environment details:

 java version "1.7.0_17"
 Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_17-b02)
 Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.7-b01, mixed mode)
 OS: Windows 7 64-bits. 

ASCII table

NOTE:

As @Black Panter added this is known bug

JDK-4510618 : [Fmt-Nu] French thousands separator is non-breaking space

WORK AROUND

(1) Remove user's grouping separator (i.e. U+0020) in a String to be parsed.

(2) Replace user's grouping separator with the formatter's grouping seperator (U+00A0) if it's inconvenient to remove all spaces.