Format a locale-specific string

The HCL Informix® GLS formatting functions scan the incoming locale-specific string to create a corresponding internal representation, as shown in the following table..

Table 1. Formatting functions for locale-specific strings
Formatting function	Unformatted form: ESQL/C internal representation	Unformatted form: DataBlade API internal representation	Formatted form
ifx_gl_format_number()	decimal (dec_t)	mi_decimal	Number string
ifx_gl_format_money()	decimal (dec_t)	mi_decimal	Money string
ifx_gl_format_date()	date (long int)	mi_date	Date string
ifx_gl_format_datetime()	datetime (dtime_t)	mi_datetime	Date/time string

The formatting directives in the format string tell the formatting functions how to format the internal representation of a value into a locale-specific string. To process a formatting directive, a formatting function consults the appropriate category in the current locale to obtain any locale-specific formats and then formats the locale-specific string with this information.

For example, the following DataBlade API call to the function ifx_gl_format_number() converts the hexadecimal representation of the number 1450 to a number string:

mi_decimal num_val;
char num_str[BUFSIZE];
...
if ( ifx_gl_format_number(num_str, BUFSIZE, &num_val,"%0x") != 0 )
    /* handle error */

If the current locale is the default locale, num_str contains the number string "1,450" upon successful completion of this call to ifx_gl_format_number(). The function correctly formats the comma (,) as the thousands separator in the number string.

If the current locale is French (fr_fr), the thousands separator is a space. Therefore, the preceding call to the function ifx_gl_convert_number() would format the French number string as "1 450".