4 Ways To Format Number As Currency In PHP

Welcome to a quick tutorial and examples on how to format a number as a currency in PHP. Want to display a “nice amount” in your project?

That covers the quick basics, but read on for more methods and examples!

ⓘ I have included a zip file with all the source code at the start of this tutorial, so you don’t have to copy-paste everything… Or if you just want to dive straight in.

 

 

QUICK SLIDES

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Download & Notes	Currency Format	Useful Bits & Links
The End

 

 

QUICK NOTES

• For 3-formatter.php to work, you need to enable extension=intl in php.ini.

If you spot a bug, feel free to comment below. I try to answer short questions too, but it is one person versus the entire world… If you need answers urgently, please check out my list of websites to get help with programming.

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Click here to download all the example source code, I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

 

 

METHOD 1) NUMBER FORMAT

<?php
// (A) THE NUMBER
$amount = 6543.21;
 
// (B) TO USD - $6,543.21
$usd = "$" . number_format($amount, 2, ".", ",");
echo $usd;
 
// (C) TO JPY - ¥6,543
$jpy = "¥" . number_format($amount, 0, ".", ",");
echo $jpy;
 
// (D) EURO (GERMANY) - 6.543,21€
$euro = number_format($amount, 2, ",", ".") . "€";
echo $euro;
 
// (E) EURO (FRENCH) - 6 543,21€
$euro = number_format($amount, 2, ",", " ") . "€";
echo $euro;

Yep, the number format function is a very common solution. Here are 4 parameters – number_format(AMOUNT, DECIMAL PLACES, THOUSANDS SEPARATOR, DECIMAL SEPARATOR). Don’t think it needs any further explanation.

 

METHOD 2) REGULAR EXPRESSION

<?php
// (A) THE NUMBER
$amount = 6543.21;
 
// (B) REGULAR EXPRESSION
$regex = "/\B(?=(\d{3})+(?!\d))/i";
$usd = "$" . preg_replace($regex, ",", $amount);
echo $usd;

The dreaded regular expressions… I am not going to explain this in detail, as it is very confusing and a whole can of worms on its own. But in plain English, all this does is “insert a comma for every 3 digits (thousands)”.

 

 

METHOD 3) NUMBER FORMATTER

<?php
// (A) THE NUMBER
$amount = 6543.21;
 
// (B) TO USD - $6,543.21
$nf = new NumberFormatter("en_US", NumberFormatter::CURRENCY);
$usd = $nf->formatCurrency($amount, "USD");
echo $usd;
 
// (C) TO JPY - ￥6,543
$nf = new NumberFormatter("ja_JP", NumberFormatter::CURRENCY);
$jpy = $nf->formatCurrency($amount, "JPY");
echo $jpy;
 
// (D) TO EURO (FRANCE) - 6 543,21 €
$nf = new NumberFormatter("fr_FR", NumberFormatter::CURRENCY);
$eur = $nf->formatCurrency($amount, "EUR");
echo $eur;

This is probably the next easiest way to format a currency in PHP, but make sure that extension=intl is enabled in php.ini.

• Using the number formatter is a 2-steps process.
  • Create $nf = new NumberFormatter(LANGUAGE_REGION);
  • Use it to format the currency – $amt = $nf->formatCurrency(AMOUNT, CURRENCY);
• For the uninitiated, that LANGUAGE_REGION is actually a pair of ISO codes. For example, en_US is “US English”, en_UK is “UK English”, and ja_JP is… Japan Japanese.
  • The language code is 2 digits ISO 639-1.
  • The region code is ISO 3166-1 alpha-2.
  • Currency code is ISO 4217.

 

METHOD 4) MANUAL FORMAT

<?php
// (A) FORMAT CURRENCY (DOLLARS)
function curformat ($amount) {
  // (A1) SPLIT WHOLE & DECIMALS
  $amount = explode(".", $amount);
  $whole = $amount[0];
  $decimal = isset($amount[1]) ? $amount[1] : "00" ;
 
  // (A2) ADD THOUSAND SEPARATORS
  if (strlen($whole) > 3) {
    $temp = ""; $j = 0;
    for ($i=strlen($whole)-1; $i>=0; $i--) {
      $temp = $whole[$i] . $temp;
      $j++;
      if ($j%3==0 && $i!=0) { $temp = "," . $temp; }
    }
    $whole = $temp;
  }
 
  // (A3) RESULT
  return "\$$whole.$decimal";
}
 
// (B) TEST!
echo curformat(54321); // $54,321.00
echo curformat(12345.67); // $12,345.67

Finally, the “brute force” way to manually format a currency… At least you get to control whatever format you want.

 

 

 

MONEY FORMAT?

In some of the older online tutorials, you will see some people use a money format function – Do not use it anymore. It has been deprecated in PHP 7.4, and totally removed in PHP 8.

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

• Number Format – PHP
• Regular Expressions – Tutorials Point
• Format Currency – PHP

 

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