When a string is entered in a localized notation, the correct interpretation can not be
determined without knowing the intended locale. The division of decimal digits with "."
and grouping of thousands with "," is common in the English language, but not so in
other languages. For example, the English number "1,234.50" would be interpreted as
meaning "1.2345" in German. To deal with such problems, the locale-aware
Zend_Measure_* family of classes offer the possibility to specify
a language or region to disambiguate the input data and properly interpret the intended
semantic value.
Example 593. Localized string
<?php
$locale = new Zend_Locale('de');
$mystring = "1,234.50";
$unit = new Zend_Measure_Length($mystring,
Zend_Measure_Length::STANDARD,
$locale);
echo $unit; // outputs "1.234 m"
$mystring = "1,234.50";
$unit = new Zend_Measure_Length($mystring,
Zend_Measure_Length::STANDARD,
'en_US');
echo $unit; // outputs "1234.50 m"
Since Zend Framework 1.7.0 Zend_Measure does also support the
usage of an application wide locale. You can simply set a
Zend_Locale instance to the registry like shown below. With this
notation you can forget about setting the locale manually with each instance when you
want to use the same locale multiple times.
<?php
// in your bootstrap file
$locale = new Zend_Locale('de_AT');
Zend_Registry::set('Zend_Locale', $locale);
// somewhere in your application
$length = new Zend_Measure_Length(Zend_Measure_Length::METER();