Next: Sign of Money Amount, Previous: General Numeric, Up: The Lame Way to Locale Data
These members of the struct lconv structure specify how to print
the symbol to identify a monetary value—the international analog of
`$' for US dollars.
Each country has two standard currency symbols. The local currency symbol is used commonly within the country, while the international currency symbol is used internationally to refer to that country's currency when it is necessary to indicate the country unambiguously.
For example, many countries use the dollar as their monetary unit, and when dealing with international currencies it's important to specify that one is dealing with (say) Canadian dollars instead of U.S. dollars or Australian dollars. But when the context is known to be Canada, there is no need to make this explicit—dollar amounts are implicitly assumed to be in Canadian dollars.
char *currency_symbolIn the standard `C' locale, this member has a value of ""
(the empty string), meaning “unspecified”. The ISO standard doesn't
say what to do when you find this value; we recommend you simply print
the empty string as you would print any other string pointed to by this
variable.
char *int_curr_symbolThe value of int_curr_symbol should normally consist of a
three-letter abbreviation determined by the international standard
ISO 4217 Codes for the Representation of Currency and Funds,
followed by a one-character separator (often a space).
In the standard `C' locale, this member has a value of ""
(the empty string), meaning “unspecified”. We recommend you simply print
the empty string as you would print any other string pointed to by this
variable.
char p_cs_precedeschar n_cs_precedeschar int_p_cs_precedeschar int_n_cs_precedes1 if the currency_symbol or
int_curr_symbol strings should precede the value of a monetary
amount, or 0 if the strings should follow the value. The
p_cs_precedes and int_p_cs_precedes members apply to
positive amounts (or zero), and the n_cs_precedes and
int_n_cs_precedes members apply to negative amounts.
In the standard `C' locale, all of these members have a value of
CHAR_MAX, meaning “unspecified”. The ISO standard doesn't say
what to do when you find this value. We recommend printing the
currency symbol before the amount, which is right for most countries.
In other words, treat all nonzero values alike in these members.
The members with the int_ prefix apply to the
int_curr_symbol while the other two apply to
currency_symbol.
char p_sep_by_spacechar n_sep_by_spacechar int_p_sep_by_spacechar int_n_sep_by_space1 if a space should appear between the
currency_symbol or int_curr_symbol strings and the
amount, or 0 if no space should appear. The
p_sep_by_space and int_p_sep_by_space members apply to
positive amounts (or zero), and the n_sep_by_space and
int_n_sep_by_space members apply to negative amounts.
In the standard `C' locale, all of these members have a value of
CHAR_MAX, meaning “unspecified”. The ISO standard doesn't say
what you should do when you find this value; we suggest you treat it as
1 (print a space). In other words, treat all nonzero values alike in
these members.
The members with the int_ prefix apply to the
int_curr_symbol while the other two apply to
currency_symbol. There is one specialty with the
int_curr_symbol, though. Since all legal values contain a space
at the end the string one either printf this space (if the currency
symbol must appear in front and must be separated) or one has to avoid
printing this character at all (especially when at the end of the
string).