[QUERY] AsFloat() Should there be an option for locale?

Query/Question For Europe and Latin America, numbers use commas for decimal points so for the input 180,00 (that’s a comma). In US/UK terms that would be 180.00 (one hundred and eighty), but there doesn’t appear to be a way to get ToFloat to accept that.

In the RecognizedForm json it is:

          {
            "type": "number",
            "text": "180,00",
            "page": 1,
            "boundingBox": [3.23, 9.19, 3.56, 9.19, 3.56, 9.285, 3.23, 9.285],
            "confidence": 0.995,
            "elements": ["#/readResults/0/lines/96/words/4"]
          },

And if you do AsFloat() on that you get 18000. How can you tell AsFloat what the locale is?

As a workaround I am doing:

            if (decimal.TryParse(field.ValueData.Text, NumberStyles.AllowDecimalPoint | NumberStyles.AllowThousands, new CultureInfo("de-DE"), out d))
            {

Environment:

• Azure.AI.FormRecognizer 3.1.0-beta.4

[maririos]

After following up, currently StartRecognizeCustomForms doesn’t support locale on the service side. Other functions, like for example, StartRecognizeBusinessCards or StartRecognizeInvoices do.

The service is working on adding it though but there isn’t a specific date yet for it. For now, your workaround is the best option.

[maririos]

Note in this case service is not returning valueNumber, and the code is following a workaround done for receipt https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-net/blob/master/sdk/formrecognizer/Azure.AI.FormRecognizer/src/FieldValue.cs#L244 FYI @kinelski

This belongs to the deeper conversation of what to do when service doesn’t return value<type>. Should text be used?

Related to #17712