Q199244: HOWTO: Retrieve the Regional Settings Currency Symbol

Article: Q199244
Product(s): Microsoft Visual Basic for Windows
Version(s): 4.0,5.0,6.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kbAPI kbVBp kbGrpDSVBDB
Last Modified: 11-JAN-2001

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition for Windows, versions 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 
- Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition for Windows, versions 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 
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SUMMARY
=======

32-bit Visual Basic applications that are distributed in more than one country
must rely upon the Regional Settings specifications of the Windows Control Panel
for retrieving the appropriate currency symbol to display to the user.
Retrieving the currency symbol involves calling the GetLocaleInfo function from
the 32-bit Windows API function library.

MORE INFORMATION
================

The following code can be used to retrieve the currency symbol as specified in
the Regional Settings of the Windows Control Panel. The GetUserDefaultLCID()
function retrieves the default locale for the current user and the
GetLocaleInfo() function retrieves information relating to the specified locale.
Keep in mind that Visual Basic 6.0 has built in functions to automatically
format numbers with the currency symbol as specified in the Control Panel's
Regional Settings. While this code works in Visual Basic 6.0, the primary
audience for this article are 32-bit Visual Basic 4.0 and Visual Basic 5.0
developers.

Executing this code stores the user default currency symbol in the Symbol
string:

     Option Explicit
     Private Declare Function GetLocaleInfo Lib "kernel32" _
        Alias "GetLocaleInfoA" (ByVal Locale As Long, _
        ByVal LCType As Long, ByVal lpLCData As String, _
        ByVal cchData As Long) As Long
     Private Declare Function GetUserDefaultLCID% Lib "kernel32" ()
     Private Const LOCALE_SCURRENCY = &H14

     Dim Symbol As String
     Dim iRet1 As Long
     Dim iRet2 As Long
     Dim lpLCDataVar As String
     Dim Pos As Integer
     Dim Locale as Long
     
     Locale = GetUserDefaultLCID() 
     iRet1 = GetLocaleInfo(Locale, LOCALE_SCURRENCY, lpLCDataVar, 0)
     
     Symbol = String$(iRet1, 0)
     iRet2 = GetLocaleInfo(Locale, LOCALE_SCURRENCY, Symbol, iRet1)
     Pos = InStr(Symbol, Chr$(0))
     If Pos > 0 Then
        Symbol = Left$(Symbol, Pos - 1)
     End If

REFERENCES
==========

For additional information about how to use API functions from within Visual
Basic, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:

  Q145679 HOWTO: Use the Registry API to Save and Retrieve Setting


For information on how to use the API Viewer add-in that ships with Visual Basic,
please see "Accessing The Microsoft Windows API" in the Visual Basic Books
Online.
For more information about locale identifiers, please see "Visual Basic
Programmer's Guide to the Win32 API", by Daniel Appleman, PC Magazine Press

Additional query words: currency symbol regional settings locale

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Keywords          : kbAPI kbVBp kbGrpDSVBDB 
Technology        : kbVBSearch kbAudDeveloper kbZNotKeyword6 kbZNotKeyword2 kbVB500Search kbVB600Search kbVBA500 kbVBA600 kbVB500 kbVB600 kbVB400Search kbVB400
Version           : :4.0,5.0,6.0
Issue type        : kbhowto

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