GetNumberFormatEx function (winnls.h)

Article
10/13/2021

Formats a number string as a number string customized for a locale specified by name.

Note The application should call this function in preference to GetNumberFormat if designed to run only on Windows Vista and later.

Note This function can format data that changes between releases, for example, due to a custom locale. If your application must persist or transmit data, see Using Persistent Locale Data.

Syntax

int GetNumberFormatEx(
  [in, optional]  LPCWSTR          lpLocaleName,
  [in]            DWORD            dwFlags,
  [in]            LPCWSTR          lpValue,
  [in, optional]  const NUMBERFMTW *lpFormat,
  [out, optional] LPWSTR           lpNumberStr,
  [in]            int              cchNumber
);

Parameters

[in, optional] lpLocaleName

Pointer to a locale name, or one of the following predefined values.

[in] dwFlags

Flags controlling the operation of the function. The application must set this parameter to 0 if lpFormat is not set to NULL. In this case, the function formats the string using user overrides to the default number format for the locale. If lpFormat is set to NULL, the application can specify LOCALE_NOUSEROVERRIDE to format the string using the system default number format for the specified locale.

Caution Use of LOCALE_NOUSEROVERRIDE is strongly discouraged as it disables user preferences.

[in] lpValue

Pointer to a null-terminated string containing the number string to format. This string can only contain the following characters. All other characters are invalid. The function returns an error if the string indicated by lpValue deviates from these rules.

Characters "0" through "9".
One decimal point (dot) if the number is a floating-point value.
A minus sign in the first character position if the number is a negative value.

[in, optional] lpFormat

Pointer to a NUMBERFMT structure that contains number formatting information, with all members set to appropriate values. If the application does not set this parameter to NULL, the function uses the locale only for formatting information not specified in the structure, for example, the locale string value for the negative sign.

[out, optional] lpNumberStr

Pointer to a buffer in which this function retrieves the formatted number string. Alternatively, this parameter contains NULL if cchNumber is set to 0. In this case, the function returns the required size for the number string buffer.

[in] cchNumber

Size, in characters, for the number string buffer indicated by lpNumberStr. Alternatively, the application can set this parameter to 0. In this case, the function returns the required size for the number string buffer and does not use the lpNumberStr parameter.

Return value

Returns the number of characters retrieved in the buffer indicated by lpNumberStr if successful. If the cchNumber parameter is set to 0, the function returns the number of characters required to hold the formatted number string, including a terminating null character.

The function returns 0 if it does not succeed. To get extended error information, the application can call GetLastError, which can return one of the following error codes:

ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_BUFFER. A supplied buffer size was not large enough, or it was incorrectly set to NULL.
ERROR_INVALID_FLAGS. The values supplied for flags were not valid.
ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER. Any of the parameter values was invalid.
ERROR_OUTOFMEMORY. Not enough storage was available to complete this operation.

Remarks

Beginning in Windows 8: If your app passes language tags to this function from the Windows.Globalization namespace, it must first convert the tags by calling ResolveLocaleName.

Requirements

Requirement	Value
Minimum supported client	Windows Vista [desktop apps \| UWP apps]
Minimum supported server	Windows Server 2008 [desktop apps \| UWP apps]
Target Platform	Windows
Header	winnls.h (include Windows.h)
Library	Kernel32.lib
DLL	Kernel32.dll