html - Chrome auto formats input=number

Question

I have a web application where I'm specifying an input field to be a number using the HTML5 property type="number".

<input type="number" value="123456" />

By specifying the type, Chrome automatically formats the value to include a comma (123,456). In other browsers it does not format the number, but it also does not prevent non-numeric characters.

In this case, I don't want the comma to be added. Is there any way to turn off localized formatting?

Answer 1

This is occurring because of the behavior associated with the HTML5 number input type in Chromium, and you are definitely not the only one that doesn't care for this.

I have worked around this issue in the past by using the text type. For example, this has worked well (tested just now in Chrome 11.0.696.71):

<input type="text" 
       placeholder="Enter Text" 
       name="inputName" 
       pattern="[0-9]*">

This behavior of the number type (to me, at least) is definitely a bug, because the HTML5 standard specifies the number should have the following value when formatted for display:

The algorithm to convert a number to a string, given a number input, is as follows: Return a valid floating point number that represents input.

And the standard defines a "valid floating point" number here, and as far as I can see, including grouping characters is not expected.

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Update

I've isolated the issue to the following code down in the guts of WebKit. I've included the line that fixes the issue here as well:

// From LocalizedNumberICU.cpp
String formatLocalizedNumber(double number, unsigned fractionDigits)
{
    NumberFormat* formatter = numberFormatter();
    if (!formatter)
        return String();
    UnicodeString result;
    formatter->setMaximumFractionDigits(clampToInteger(fractionDigits));
    formatter->setGroupingUsed(FALSE); // added this line to fix the problem
    formatter->format(number, result);
    return String(result.getBuffer(), result.length());
}

I'm on vacation next week, but plan on submitting this patch to the WebKit team when I return. Once they (hopefully) accept the patch, Chromium should pull it in as part of its normal refresh process.

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You can see the original code here, the patched revision here, and the diff of the original file and the patched file here. The final patch was created by Shinya Kawanaka.