Dr. Dobb's is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.


Channels ▼
RSS

JVM Languages

Java & Monetary Data


May04: Java & Monetary Data

A standalone class to tackle the problem

John is a senior partner and owner of Objective Logic L.L.P. in McKinney, Texas, a software consulting firm specializing in Java-centric architectures and solutions. He can be reached at [email protected].


Decimal Data


Java and J2EE have become ubiquitous as a platform of choice for creating robust enterprise e-commerce applications. Although these kinds of applications typically involve operations on monetary data (computing unit and extended prices, tax amounts, shipping costs, and so on), Java does not provide suitable mechanisms for dealing with this type of data.

Consequently, programmers are often faced with the problem of how to reliably represent, store, and manipulate monetary data. Obviously, when dealing with money, the importance of "getting it right" cannot be overstated. For these and similar reasons, an e-commerce application architecture should include a consistent mechanism for dealing with monetary data.

In this article, I'll examine some of the more common techniques for dealing with monetary data, and show why these techniques are less than optimal. I also present Money, a standalone Java class that addresses the problem of dealing with monetary data.

The Nature of Money

The unit of measurement for U.S. currency is the cent; 100 cents make up one dollar. By convention, a monetary value is represented as a whole dollar amount and a fractional dollar amount (cents), normally written as a decimal value with exactly two digits to the right of the decimal point. It is important to understand that monetary values are not "real" numbers in the strict sense of the word. Whereas real numbers form a continuum of values, monetary data forms a discrete set of values. For instance, the fractional component of a dollar amount (cents) can take on any one of exactly one hundred possible discrete values—0,1,2,3,...99.

Most programming languages (including Java) offer so-called "native data types" that are directly or indirectly related to the hardware's ability to represent, store, and perform arithmetic operations on numeric data. For example, most languages provide integer data types for representing integral numbers, and floating-point data types for representing real numbers. Unfortunately, native data types are generally not well suited for use with monetary data. (See the accompanying text box entitled "Decimal Data.")

Integer Data Types

Since an integer data type can only represent integral values, using an integer data type with a monetary value normally requires the assumption of an implicit decimal point. To accommodate both whole dollars and cents, a monetary value must be scaled (multiplied) by some factor (such as 100) and stored as an integer value. For example, the monetary value $19.95 could be stored as the integer value 1995; in this case, there would be an implicit decimal point between the dollars (19) and the cents (95).

The use of integer data types to represent monetary values suffers from a number of significant drawbacks. Integer data types are limited in the magnitude of values that they can represent. More importantly, doing arithmetic on scaled integer values (in particular, multiplication and division) can be messy and prone to programming errors. Intermediate results must be appropriately scaled to ensure the preservation of all significant digits, and you must keep track of where the implied decimal point is located. Because of these and other issues, integer data types are not a practical choice for use with monetary data.

Floating-Point Data Types

Floating-point data types represent real numbers (numbers having both an integral and a fractional component) and would seem to be the logical choice for use with monetary data. However, the use of floating-point data types with monetary data is somewhat problematic.

While floating-point data types are capable of representing extremely large positive and negative numbers and offer the equivalent of many decimal digits of precision, they are nonetheless inexact when it comes to representing decimal numbers. The reason for this stems from the fact that computers are binary, not decimal, machines. Internally, the hardware must represent a decimal number using a binary format, and most real decimal numbers cannot be exactly represented in a fixed-length binary format.

To illustrate, Example 1 uses Java's 32-bit float data type to store a unit cost of $9.48 for an item. Java's BigDecimal class is used to obtain a true rendering of the value of the unitCost variable. When the code is executed, the following output is produced:

The unit cost is $9.48

The float value is $9.479999542236328125

Because the decimal value 9.48 cannot be represented exactly as a binary floating-point value, it must be represented as a close approximation—in this case, 9.479999542236328125. Fortunately, Java's built-in float-to-String conversion methods can identify such an approximation and display the value as 9.48, instead of 9.479999542236328125.

Now, suppose you wish to compute the total cost of 100 items having a unit cost of $9.48:

float totalCost = unitCost * 100.0f;

System.out.println("Total Cost: $" + totalCost);

When this code is executed, the following output is produced:

Total Cost: $947.99994

In this case, the effects of inexactness when using a floating-point data type to represent a monetary value are more obvious. If the computed value is simply truncated to two decimal places, the result is $947.99, which is definitely wrong, and would cost you a penny if you were preparing a customer invoice. The problem only gets worse as the computations become more complex.

Java's BigDecimal Class

Java's BigDecimal class is specifically designed to address the problems of dealing with decimal numbers. It offers the ability to deal with very large decimal values, while maintaining accuracy and precision. BigDecimal can be used with monetary data and avoids some of the pitfalls associated with using native data types. In essence, BigDecimal implements a virtual signed decimal integer having arbitrary precision and an implied decimal point.

BigDecimal does overcome many of the limitations of using Java's native data types. For one thing, a BigDecimal object can store and manipulate very large values. Furthermore, since a BigDecimal object represents a value internally as a decimal (not binary) number, it can represent a monetary value exactly. And methods are provided for performing the usual types of manipulation that are required when working with monetary data, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and so forth.

However, using BigDecimal directly with monetary data is a somewhat cumbersome and inelegant solution because the BigDecimal class is designed to address the generic problem of dealing with decimal data. As such, it doesn't offer a semantically clean solution for dealing with monetary data. For example, users must explicitly deal with issues such as round-off, scaling, formatting, and so on. This adds extra code to the application, and obscures the application's use of monetary data.

The Money Class

The Money class (available electronically; see "Resource Center," page 5) offers the ability to deal with large monetary values while implicitly maintaining maximum precision throughout complex computations. It avoids the introduction of intermediate round-off errors during computations and provides a straightforward mechanism for rounding off final results.

Internally, a Money object stores a monetary value in the form of a BigDecimal object. Thus, extremely large positive and negative monetary values are supported, while maintaining many digits of precision during computation, ensuring accurate results. Round-off to the nearest whole cent is strictly controlled; incoming values (used to construct a Money object) are never rounded off, nor are intermediate computational results. Round-off occurs only when the monetary value is externalized for use in the "real world" outside the Money class. A common example of this occurs when a monetary value is formatted as a String for display (in a report or on an invoice, for example). In such cases, you normally want the monetary value rounded to the nearest whole cent, accurate to two decimal places.

Money objects, like String objects, are immutable and, therefore, have similar semantics. In particular, methods never modify the state of a Money object, but instead return a new Money object with a state that reflects the operation performed. For example, the statement totalCost.add(itemCost); does not modify the value of totalCost. The return value is discarded, and the statement has no effect. To add the value of itemCost to totalCost, you would write this as totalCost = totalCost.add(itemCost);, which replaces totalCost with a reference to a new Money object representing the sum of totalCost and itemCost.

The class provides a number of constructors (Table 1) that allow a Money object to be created from a variety of common sources.

A double floating-point value specifies a monetary value in dollars and cents. For example, a value of 19.95 would represent the monetary value $19.95.

A long integer, in the absence of an explicit scaling factor, represents whole dollars only (no cents). For example, a value of 1995 would represent $1995.00. However, an optional scaling factor of 0, 1, or 2 specifies the number of decimal digits to the right of an implicit decimal point. For example, the value of 1995 with a scaling factor of 2 would represent $19.95.

A String representation of a monetary value, such as "$19.95," can be also be used to construct a Money object. In this case, the String must be consistent with the currency format specified for the Money class.

Arithmetic Operations On Monetary Values

The Money class provides methods (Table 2) to perform the usual arithmetic operations required on monetary data, including add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Whereas the add and subtract methods operate on two monetary values, multiply and divide operations involve a double, or long, multiplier or divisor and facilitate operations such as tax computation.

Converting Monetary Values to Native Data Types

There may be situations in which it is desirable to convert a monetary value to a native Java data type. For example, this might be required when storing the value in a database. The Money class provides two methods for this purpose.

The toDouble() method converts a monetary value to a double floating-point value. However, you should avoid using the converted value for computational purposes, owing to the problems associated with the use of floating-point data types with monetary data.

You can also convert a monetary value to a long integer data type (having an implied scaling factor of 2). In this case, an automatic round-off to the nearest whole cent is performed.

A variety of methods are provided that can be used to determine if a monetary value is zero, positive, or negative, or to compare two monetary values (as in Table 3).

Currency Formats

The Money class makes use of a currency format (a special instance of Java's DecimalFormat class) to control the formatting of monetary values for display, as well as the parsing of a String representing a monetary value. A currency format specifies format attributes such as the currency symbol, the decimal separator, how positive and negative values are displayed, and whether decimal digits in the dollar amount will include a grouping character.

Unless otherwise specified, the currency format associated with the current default locale is used. For the United States, the default currency format specifies that monetary values be formatted using the dollar sign ("$") as the currency symbol and the decimal point (".") as the decimal separator. The dollar amount includes the comma (",") as a delimiter between each group of three digits, and negative amounts are indicated by enclosure within parentheses.

Examples of monetary values formatted using the default currency format for the United States include:

$123.45 $1,234,567.89 ($1,234.56)

The getCurrencyFormat() method is used to obtain the currency format of a Money object. The setCurrencyFormat() method is used to change the currency format. See the Java API documentation for the DecimalFormat class for detailed information on how to specify and use decimal formats.

Formatting a Monetary Value for Display

The Money class overrides the toString() method to return a String representation of a monetary value. Consequently, Money objects can conveniently be used in String expressions. A monetary value is formatted according to the conventions specified by the currency format for the object.

Parsing a Monetary Value

A Money object can be created from a String representation of a monetary value using either the Money(String) constructor or the parse() method. The currency format controls the parsing of the string (see the previous section on currency formats). If the String representing the monetary value is inconsistent with the currency format, a ParseException is recognized.

The default United States currency format, for example, requires that monetary values include the dollar sign ("$") and use the decimal point (".") as a separator between the dollars and cents. The dollar amount must also include the comma (",") as a delimiter between each group of three digits, and negative amounts must be enclosed in parentheses. The section on currency formats illustrates some monetary values that conform to the default format.

Monetary values provided as input by a user (on a web form, for example) do not usually include formal formatting characters, such as the dollar sign and grouping characters. For example, a user would probably enter "1234.56" instead of "$1,234.56." Simple monetary values such as these are easily parsed by first creating a BigDecimal object, from which you can then create a Money object:

BigDecimal value = new BigDecmal ("1234.56");

Money money = new Money(value);

Rounding

Rounding off a monetary value to an integral cent occurs only in select situations; namely, when formatting a monetary value for display as a String, and when exporting a monetary value to a long data type. In both cases, the monetary value of the object itself is never rounded; only the value returned is rounded.

As noted earlier, the Money class maintains a monetary value internally as a BigDecimal value. Consequently, all but one of the rounding modes offered by Java's BigDecimal class are supported. In practice, however, only a few of the available rounding modes are appropriate for monetary values. Table 4 illustrates several rounding modes that are relevant for monetary data.

The default rounding mode for a Money object is BigDecimal.ROUND_DOWN, which simply truncates the monetary value to exactly two decimal places, discarding any fractional part of a cent. Thus, by default, monetary values are never rounded upward.

For certain situations, however, it may be appropriate to use a different rounding mode. For example, you might wish to round a tax amount to the nearest whole cent. Or, you might want to round a grand total up to the next whole cent. Setting the rounding mode to the desired value allows you to control the manner in which monetary values are rounded off.

Many operations on BigDecimal values discard precision (trailing digits) and therefore require that a valid rounding mode be specified; otherwise, an ArithmeticException may be recognized. For this reason, you can specify any valid rounding mode other than BigDecimal.ROUND_UNNECESSARY, which suppresses rounding.

Handling Exceptions

Certain methods of the Money class throw runtime (nonchecked) exceptions to signal error conditions. Because these are runtime exceptions, you are not required to enclose certain method invocations in a try-catch block. However, you are strongly encouraged to use a try-catch block when parsing a String representation of a monetary value.

A ParseException is thrown by the Money(String) constructor and the parse(String) method if the specified String representation of a monetary value is inconsistent with the currency format.

The InvalidScaleFactorException is thrown by the Money(long) constructor if the specified scale factor is not valid (valid scale factors are 0, 1, and 2). The InvalidScaleFactorException is an embedded static class of the Money object.

The InvalidRoundingModeException is thrown by the setRoundingMode() method if an invalid rounding mode is specified (all rounding modes are valid with the exception of BigDecimal.ROUND_UNNECESSARY). The InvalidRoundingModeException is an embedded static class of the Money object.

Conclusion

Having a consistent, accurate, and reliable mechanism for dealing with monetary data is an important element of any robust e-commerce architecture. Java's native data types, such as integer and floating point, are not suitable for use with monetary data, and the standard Java class library does not directly address the issue of monetary data.

The Money class effectively encapsulates the issues associated with monetary data and offers a simple and reliable solution to the problem of handling monetary data in the Java programming environment.

DDJ


Related Reading


More Insights






Currently we allow the following HTML tags in comments:

Single tags

These tags can be used alone and don't need an ending tag.

<br> Defines a single line break

<hr> Defines a horizontal line

Matching tags

These require an ending tag - e.g. <i>italic text</i>

<a> Defines an anchor

<b> Defines bold text

<big> Defines big text

<blockquote> Defines a long quotation

<caption> Defines a table caption

<cite> Defines a citation

<code> Defines computer code text

<em> Defines emphasized text

<fieldset> Defines a border around elements in a form

<h1> This is heading 1

<h2> This is heading 2

<h3> This is heading 3

<h4> This is heading 4

<h5> This is heading 5

<h6> This is heading 6

<i> Defines italic text

<p> Defines a paragraph

<pre> Defines preformatted text

<q> Defines a short quotation

<samp> Defines sample computer code text

<small> Defines small text

<span> Defines a section in a document

<s> Defines strikethrough text

<strike> Defines strikethrough text

<strong> Defines strong text

<sub> Defines subscripted text

<sup> Defines superscripted text

<u> Defines underlined text

Dr. Dobb's encourages readers to engage in spirited, healthy debate, including taking us to task. However, Dr. Dobb's moderates all comments posted to our site, and reserves the right to modify or remove any content that it determines to be derogatory, offensive, inflammatory, vulgar, irrelevant/off-topic, racist or obvious marketing or spam. Dr. Dobb's further reserves the right to disable the profile of any commenter participating in said activities.

 
Disqus Tips To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy.