unexpected number formatting

Title: unexpected number formatting

Hi, I found unexpected number formatting when i use xlsxwriter

Here is some code that demonstrates the problem: Also you can check github repo with docker containers https://github.com/p0m1d0rka/xlsxwriter_weird_formatting

Xlsxwriter will add additional “\” before " " and “,” in excel and break format.

What am I doing wrong?

import xlsxwriter
import os
filename = 'xlsxwriter_test_python' + os.environ['PYTHON_VERSION'] + '.xlsx'

workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook(filename)
worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()
big_numbers_format = workbook.add_format({'num_format': '# ##0'})
percent_format = workbook.add_format({'num_format': '0,00%'})

#expected in excel 100 000 000, got 100000 000
worksheet.write_number  (0, 0, 100000000, big_numbers_format)

#expected 99,99% in excel got 100%
worksheet.write_number  (0, 1, 0.9999, percent_format)

workbook.close()

[jmcnamara]

The reason this happens is that Excel stores the format in xlsx file in the US format (with “.” decimal and “,” thousand separator). When Excel reads and displays the file it uses the values set in Windows for the locale (“,” and " " in your case).

Thanks for the detailed report by the way. That is the first time anyone has supplied a docker image, even though the sample code was enough.

[jmcnamara]

Thanks for that. It looks like your manual edits invoke the Excel builtin formats. See this section of the docs: “For backwards compatibility XlsxWriter also supports Excel’s built-in formats which are set via an index number, rather than a string” https://xlsxwriter.readthedocs.io/format.html#format-set-num-format

So the following should give you what you want (note the numbers instead of format strings:

import xlsxwriter
import os

filename = 'test.xlsx'

workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook(filename)
worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()

worksheet.set_column(0, 0, 20)

big_numbers_format = workbook.add_format({'num_format': 3})
percent_format = workbook.add_format({'num_format': 10})

worksheet.write_number  (0, 0, 100000000, big_numbers_format)

worksheet.write_number  (0, 1, 0.9999, percent_format)

workbook.close()

The following may also work:

big_numbers_format = workbook.add_format({'num_format': '#,##0'})
percent_format = workbook.add_format({'num_format': '0.00%'})