Library for converting numbers to words?

Questions / Help
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I’d like to print “zero reservations”, “one reservation”, “two reservations”, etc. I can use inflex to get plurals and singulars, but I can’t find anything that’s the equivalent of Ruby’s to_words or humanize gems. Neither inflex nor Number has what I want:

to_word(1) # "one"

Am I missing something? Were I to port one of the Ruby libraries, is there an Elixir library to target for a pull request?

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Thanks for the shoutout. The package on hex is ex_cldr_numbers (I am the author). Some examples from the readme:

Formatting numbers as words, ordinals and roman numerals

  • As words. For example, formatting 123 into “one hundred and twenty-three” for the “en” locale. The applicable format types are :spellout and :spellout_verbose.
iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout
{:ok, "one hundred twenty-three"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout, locale: "de"
{:ok, "ein­hundert­drei­und­zwanzig"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout, locale: "fr"
{:ok, "cent vingt-trois"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout, locale: "th"
{:ok, "หนึ่ง​ร้อย​ยี่​สิบ​สาม"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout, locale: "he"
{:ok, "מאה עשרים ושלוש"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout, locale: "es"
{:ok, "ciento veintitrés"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout, locale: "zh"
{:ok, "一百二十三"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout_verbose
{:ok, "one hundred and twenty-three"}
  • As a year. In many languages the written form of a year is different to that used for an arbitrary number. For example, formatting 1989 would result in “nineteen eighty-nine”. The applicable format type is :spellout_year.
iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 2017, format: :spellout_year
{:ok, "twenty seventeen"}
  • As an ordinal. For example, formatting 123 into “123rd”. The applicable format types are :ordinal, :spellout_ordinal and :spellout_ordinal_verbose.
iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :ordinal
{:ok, "123rd"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout_ordinal
{:ok, "one hundred twenty-third"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :spellout_ordinal_verbose
{:ok, "one hundred and twenty-third"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :ordinal, locale: "fr"
{:ok, "123e"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :ordinal, locale: "zh"
{:ok, "第123"}
  • As Roman numerals. For example, formatting 123 into “CXXIII”. The applicable formats are :roman or :roman_lower. Note that roman number formatting is only supported for numbers between 1 and 5,000.
iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :roman
{:ok, "CXXIII"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123, format: :roman_lower
{:ok, "cxxiii"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 12345, format: :roman_lower
{:ok, "12,345"}
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I keep being impressed by the high quality of your work. Extremely well done.

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Hello how about with decimal amount, can convert to word?

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Yes. ex_cldr and friends support integers, floats and Decimals.

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string Decimal.new(123), format: :spellout
{:ok, "one hundred twenty-three"}
3 Likes
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Hello everyone,

Is it me or the to_string function does not support decimals?

iex(20)> Mercando.Cldr.Number.to_string(234.23, format: :spellout)
{:error,
 {Cldr.Rbnf.NoRuleForNumber,
  "rule group :spellout_numbering for locale :en does not know how to process 234.23"}}

If this is the case, can someone explain why? Is there any way to make it work?

Best regards,

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Rules based number formats are curious things and the default :spellout_numbering rule (which is what you get with format: :spellout doesn’t support fractional digits. I suspect that it’s because most (maybe all?) locales support :spellout_numbering but not all locales have the notion of spelling out the fractional part.

However all is not lost, there are other rule sets. You can see what rule sets exist for a given locale with:

iex> Cldr.Rbnf.rule_names_for_locale :en
{:ok,
 [:spellout_ordinal_verbose, :spellout_cardinal_verbose, :spellout_cardinal,
  :spellout_ordinal, :spellout_numbering_year, :spellout_numbering_verbose,
  :spellout_numbering, :digits_ordinal]}

And if you try :spellout_cardinal and :spellout_cardinal_verbose you’ll see:

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 1234.456, format: :spellout_cardinal
{:ok, "one thousand two hundred thirty-four point four five six"}

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 1234.456, format: :spellout_cardinal_verbose
{:ok, "one thousand two hundred and thirty-four point four five six"}
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Thanks @kip,

I hope I had found this library when starting my project.

Tried your solution and worked for locale “en” but not for “es”.

Still, this is of great help. I am going to create a small function to separate the decimals and create a new string out of it.

Best regards,

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@joaquinalcerro, not all locales have the same RBNF (rules based number formats) rules. That’s why it’s important to check first what rules are available. For :es:

iex> Cldr.Rbnf.rule_names_for_locale :en
{:ok,
 [:spellout_ordinal_verbose, :spellout_numbering_verbose,
  :spellout_cardinal_verbose, :spellout_cardinal, :spellout_ordinal,
  :spellout_numbering_year, :spellout_numbering, :digits_ordinal]}

As you can see there is no :spellout_cardinal but there are :spellout_cardinal_masculine and :spellout_cardinal_feminine. Lets try those:

iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123.456, format: :spellout_cardinal_masculine, locale: :es
{:ok, "ciento veintitrés punto cuatro cinco seis"}
iex> MyApp.Cldr.Number.to_string 123.456, format: :spellout_cardinal_feminine, locale: :es
{:ok, "ciento veintitrés punto cuatro cinco seis"}

Note: Requires the latest ex_cldr_numbers version 2.32.2.

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Thanks @kip for the detailed explanation.

This will work perfectly for my use case.

Best regards