String Formatting to Currency C#

Question

I am new to building web applications in ASP.NET and am trying to display a currency in Kenya Shillings. The symbol for the shilling is KES.

I have this:

<span>
    <b>Price: </b><%#:String.Format(new System.Globalization.CultureInfo("sw-KE"), "{0:c}", Item.BeatPrice)%> 
</span>

Culture name sourced from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.globalization.cultureinfo%28v=vs.80%29.aspx.

However, the price shows as S3,000 instead of KES 3,000.

What do I need to do to format the price correctly?

Answer 1

If the format is not as you expect you can add custom string formatting:

String.Format("KES {0:N3}", Item.BeatPrice)

Hope this works.

Answer 2

It's better not to hardcode the CurrencySymbol, so you should use

var regionInfo = new RegionInfo("sw-KE");
var currencySymbol = regionInfo.ISOCurrencySymbol;

to get the correct CurrencySymbol for your culture.

//edit: Or you can try this function:

public static string FormatCurrency(decimal value)
{
    CultureInfo cultureInfo = Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture;
    RegionInfo regionInfo = new RegionInfo(cultureInfo.LCID);
    string formattedCurrency = String.Format("{0} {1:C}", regionInfo.ISOCurrencySymbol, value);
    return formattedCurrency.Replace(cultureInfo.NumberFormat.CurrencySymbol, String.Empty).Trim();

}

Which gives you a formatted currency string based on the current UICulture.

Answer 3

If your machine's regional settings are properly set then you can use:

Console.WriteLine(string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, "{0:c}", Item.BeatPrice));

It will automatically take culture based on your machine's regional settings.