Safe String to BigDecimal conversion

Question

Check out setParseBigDecimal in DecimalFormat. With this setter, parse will return a BigDecimal for you.

String value = "1,000,000,000.999999999999999";
BigDecimal money = new BigDecimal(value.replaceAll(",", ""));
System.out.println(money);

---

Full code to prove that no NumberFormatException is thrown:

import java.math.BigDecimal;

public class Tester {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        String value = "1,000,000,000.999999999999999";
        BigDecimal money = new BigDecimal(value.replaceAll(",", ""));
        System.out.println(money);
    }
}

Output

1000000000.999999999999999

The following sample code works well (locale need to be obtained dynamically)

import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.text.NumberFormat;
import java.text.DecimalFormat;
import java.text.ParsePosition;
import java.util.Locale;

class TestBigDecimal {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        String str = "0,00";
        Locale in_ID = new Locale("in","ID");
        //Locale in_ID = new Locale("en","US");

        DecimalFormat nf = (DecimalFormat)NumberFormat.getInstance(in_ID);
        nf.setParseBigDecimal(true);

        BigDecimal bd = (BigDecimal)nf.parse(str, new ParsePosition(0));

        System.out.println("bd value : " + bd);
    }
}

The code could be cleaner, but this seems to do the trick for different locales.

import java.math.BigDecimal;
import java.text.DecimalFormatSymbols;
import java.util.Locale;


public class Main
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        final BigDecimal numberA;
        final BigDecimal numberB;

        numberA = stringToBigDecimal("1,000,000,000.999999999999999", Locale.CANADA);
        numberB = stringToBigDecimal("1.000.000.000,999999999999999", Locale.GERMANY);
        System.out.println(numberA);
        System.out.println(numberB);
    }

    private static BigDecimal stringToBigDecimal(final String formattedString,
                                                 final Locale locale)
    {
        final DecimalFormatSymbols symbols;
        final char                 groupSeparatorChar;
        final String               groupSeparator;
        final char                 decimalSeparatorChar;
        final String               decimalSeparator;
        String                     fixedString;
        final BigDecimal           number;

        symbols              = new DecimalFormatSymbols(locale);
        groupSeparatorChar   = symbols.getGroupingSeparator();
        decimalSeparatorChar = symbols.getDecimalSeparator();

        if(groupSeparatorChar == '.')
        {
            groupSeparator = "\\" + groupSeparatorChar;
        }
        else
        {
            groupSeparator = Character.toString(groupSeparatorChar);
        }

        if(decimalSeparatorChar == '.')
        {
            decimalSeparator = "\\" + decimalSeparatorChar;
        }
        else
        {
            decimalSeparator = Character.toString(decimalSeparatorChar);
        }

        fixedString = formattedString.replaceAll(groupSeparator , "");
        fixedString = fixedString.replaceAll(decimalSeparator , ".");
        number      = new BigDecimal(fixedString);

        return (number);
    }
}

Here is how I would do it:

public String cleanDecimalString(String input, boolean americanFormat) {
    if (americanFormat)
        return input.replaceAll(",", "");
    else
        return input.replaceAll(".", "");
}

Obviously, if this were going in production code, it wouldn't be that simple.

I see no issue with simply removing the commas from the String.

I needed a solution to convert a String to a BigDecimal without knowing the locale and being locale-independent. I couldn't find any standard solution for this problem so i wrote my own helper method. May be it helps anybody else too:

Update: Warning! This helper method works only for decimal numbers, so numbers which always have a decimal point! Otherwise the helper method could deliver a wrong result for numbers between 1000 and 999999 (plus/minus). Thanks to bezmax for his great input!

static final String EMPTY = "";
static final String POINT = '.';
static final String COMMA = ',';
static final String POINT_AS_STRING = ".";
static final String COMMA_AS_STRING = ",";

/**
     * Converts a String to a BigDecimal.
     *     if there is more than 1 '.', the points are interpreted as thousand-separator and will be removed for conversion
     *     if there is more than 1 ',', the commas are interpreted as thousand-separator and will be removed for conversion
     *  the last '.' or ',' will be interpreted as the separator for the decimal places
     *  () or - in front or in the end will be interpreted as negative number
     *
     * @param value
     * @return The BigDecimal expression of the given string
     */
    public static BigDecimal toBigDecimal(final String value) {
        if (value != null){
            boolean negativeNumber = false;

            if (value.containts("(") && value.contains(")"))
               negativeNumber = true;
            if (value.endsWith("-") || value.startsWith("-"))
               negativeNumber = true;

            String parsedValue = value.replaceAll("[^0-9\\,\\.]", EMPTY);

            if (negativeNumber)
               parsedValue = "-" + parsedValue;

            int lastPointPosition = parsedValue.lastIndexOf(POINT);
            int lastCommaPosition = parsedValue.lastIndexOf(COMMA);

            //handle '1423' case, just a simple number
            if (lastPointPosition == -1 && lastCommaPosition == -1)
                return new BigDecimal(parsedValue);
            //handle '45.3' and '4.550.000' case, only points are in the given String
            if (lastPointPosition > -1 && lastCommaPosition == -1){
                int firstPointPosition = parsedValue.indexOf(POINT);
                if (firstPointPosition != lastPointPosition)
                    return new BigDecimal(parsedValue.replace(POINT_AS_STRING, EMPTY));
                else
                    return new BigDecimal(parsedValue);
            }
            //handle '45,3' and '4,550,000' case, only commas are in the given String
            if (lastPointPosition == -1 && lastCommaPosition > -1){
                int firstCommaPosition = parsedValue.indexOf(COMMA);
                if (firstCommaPosition != lastCommaPosition)
                    return new BigDecimal(parsedValue.replace(COMMA_AS_STRING, EMPTY));
                else
                    return new BigDecimal(parsedValue.replace(COMMA, POINT));
            }
            //handle '2.345,04' case, points are in front of commas
            if (lastPointPosition < lastCommaPosition){
                parsedValue = parsedValue.replace(POINT_AS_STRING, EMPTY);
                return new BigDecimal(parsedValue.replace(COMMA, POINT));
            }
            //handle '2,345.04' case, commas are in front of points
            if (lastCommaPosition < lastPointPosition){
                parsedValue = parsedValue.replace(COMMA_AS_STRING, EMPTY);
                return new BigDecimal(parsedValue);
            }
            throw new NumberFormatException("Unexpected number format. Cannot convert '" + value + "' to BigDecimal.");
        }
        return null;
    }

Of course i've tested the method:

@Test(dataProvider = "testBigDecimals")
    public void toBigDecimal_defaultLocaleTest(String stringValue, BigDecimal bigDecimalValue){
        BigDecimal convertedBigDecimal = DecimalHelper.toBigDecimal(stringValue);
        Assert.assertEquals(convertedBigDecimal, bigDecimalValue);
    }
    @DataProvider(name = "testBigDecimals")
    public static Object[][] bigDecimalConvertionTestValues() {
        return new Object[][] {
                {"5", new BigDecimal(5)},
                {"5,3", new BigDecimal("5.3")},
                {"5.3", new BigDecimal("5.3")},
                {"5.000,3", new BigDecimal("5000.3")},
                {"5.000.000,3", new BigDecimal("5000000.3")},
                {"5.000.000", new BigDecimal("5000000")},
                {"5,000.3", new BigDecimal("5000.3")},
                {"5,000,000.3", new BigDecimal("5000000.3")},
                {"5,000,000", new BigDecimal("5000000")},
                {"+5", new BigDecimal("5")},
                {"+5,3", new BigDecimal("5.3")},
                {"+5.3", new BigDecimal("5.3")},
                {"+5.000,3", new BigDecimal("5000.3")},
                {"+5.000.000,3", new BigDecimal("5000000.3")},
                {"+5.000.000", new BigDecimal("5000000")},
                {"+5,000.3", new BigDecimal("5000.3")},
                {"+5,000,000.3", new BigDecimal("5000000.3")},
                {"+5,000,000", new BigDecimal("5000000")},
                {"-5", new BigDecimal("-5")},
                {"-5,3", new BigDecimal("-5.3")},
                {"-5.3", new BigDecimal("-5.3")},
                {"-5.000,3", new BigDecimal("-5000.3")},
                {"-5.000.000,3", new BigDecimal("-5000000.3")},
                {"-5.000.000", new BigDecimal("-5000000")},
                {"-5,000.3", new BigDecimal("-5000.3")},
                {"-5,000,000.3", new BigDecimal("-5000000.3")},
                {"-5,000,000", new BigDecimal("-5000000")},
                {null, null}
        };
    }