Using format flags to format negative number in parentheses

In this example we are going to learn to use a java.util.Formatter to format negative number in parentheses. The Formatter can use a format flags to format a value. To display a negative number in parentheses we can use the ( flag. This flag display negative number inside parentheses instead of using the - symbol.

The following code snippet below will show you how to do it. We start the example by using the Formatter object and simplified using the format() method of the String class.

package org.kodejava.util;

import java.util.Formatter;
import java.util.Locale;

public class FormatNegativeNumber {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Creates an instance of Formatter, format the number using the
        // format and print out the result.
        Formatter formatter = new Formatter();
        formatter.format("%(,.2f", -199.99f);
        System.out.println("number1 = " + formatter);

        // Use String.format() method instead of creating an instance of
        // Formatter. Format a negative number using Germany locale.
        String number2 = String.format(Locale.GERMANY, "%(,8.2f", -49.99);
        System.out.println("number2 = " + number2);

        // Format number using Indonesian locale. The thousand separator is "."
        // in Indonesian number.
        String number3 = String.format(new Locale("id", "ID"), "%(,d", -10000);
        System.out.println("number3 = " + number3);
    }
}

The result of this code snippet:

number1 = (199.99)
number2 =  (49,99)
number3 = (10.000)

How do I parse negative number in parentheses?

In financial application negative numbers are often represented in parentheses. In this post we will learn how we can parse or convert the negative number in parentheses to produce the represented number value. To parse text / string to a number we can use the java.text.DecimalFormat class.

Beside number in parentheses, in this example we also parse negative number that use the minus sign with the currency symbol like $. Let’s jump to the code snippet below:

package org.kodejava.text;

import java.text.DecimalFormat;

public class NegativeNumberParse {
    // Pattern for parsing negative number.
    public static final String PATTERN1 = "#,##0.00;(#,##0.00)";
    public static final String PATTERN2 = "$#,##0.00;-$#,##0.00";

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        DecimalFormat df = new DecimalFormat(PATTERN1);

        String number1 = "(1000)";
        String number2 = "(1,500.99)";

        System.out.println("number1 = " + df.parse(number1));
        System.out.println("number2 = " + df.parse(number2));

        df = (DecimalFormat) DecimalFormat.getInstance();
        df.applyPattern(PATTERN2);

        String number3 = "-$1000";
        String number4 = "-$1,500.99";

        System.out.println("number3 = " + df.parse(number3));
        System.out.println("number4 = " + df.parse(number4));
    }
}

And here are the results of our code snippet above:

number1 = -1000
number2 = -1500.99
number3 = -1000
number4 = -1500.99

If you need to display or format negative numbers in parentheses you can take a look at the following example How do I display negative number in parentheses?.