How to normalize international number formats when scraping web data
Developers working with international data often encounter conflicting number formats, where a period or comma can mean either a decimal point or a thousands separator depending on the country. For example, '1.234' means one-point-two-three-four in the US but one thousand two hundred thirty-four in Germany. A practical JavaScript function has been proposed that uses heuristics to detect and normalize these formats automatically. The core rule treats a single separator followed by exactly three digits as a thousands separator, since financial table data with thousands grouping is far more common than three-decimal-place values. The approach is described as a pragmatic compromise that handles the majority of real-world cases in HTML tables and exported spreadsheets.
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