javascriptcurrency

NumberFormat for CAD Currency not Right

I am using Intl.NumberFormat and when I set the currency to CAD with an English locale, I am getting CA$5.00. I thought the symbols would be something $ or Can$ or C$ or CAD I just threw up a simple codepen https://codepen.io/jrock2004/pen/MMKqQq?editors=1010

const price = 5,
  locale = 'en-US',
  currency = 'CAD';

const formatter = new Intl.NumberFormat (locale, {
  style: 'currency',
  currency: currency,
});

const formattedPrice = formatter.format (price);

Am I doing something wrong or maybe nothing is wrong at all? Thanks

Solution

  • Javascript engine V8 uses ICU for currency(and other locale) formatting. And ICU uses CLDR. In cldr we have a list of defined alternative names here. So when we set locale as US(en_US) and we want us dollars then the symbol is $. But for the same locale we can get different dollars so in order to distinguish it CDLR returns different symbols. Same would be if you set locale to en_CA and currency to CAD then we get the symbol $ because Canadians refer to Canadian dollars as dollars(no surprise here :) ) And for locale = 'en-CA', currency = 'USD' we would get US$1.00.

    There are several alternative dollar symbols in CLDR(AUD - A$, BRL - R$ and few others).

    Also if we check the documentation for Intl.NumberFormat currencyDisplay options can be symbol, code or name. If you pass code you get CAD 1.00 and if you pass symbol you get CA$ 1.00.

    TLDR; Js uses ICU that uses CDLR that returns CA$ for your case.