{"id":5794,"date":"2015-01-09T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/?p=5794"},"modified":"2015-01-07T04:30:20","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T09:30:20","slug":"spelling-out-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/pick\/2015\/01\/09\/spelling-out-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"Spelling out numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n

Jiro<\/a>'s pick this week is num2words<\/tt><\/a> by Stephen Cobeldick<\/a>.\r\n <\/p>\r\n

Just recently, I witnessed a typo on a check<\/a> payment. The amount was for \"$19050\" (unfortunately, it wasn't for me) but the written text read \"One thousand nine hundred\r\n fifty dollars\". Many people might wonder why someone would make such a simple mistake. Did the person miscount the number\r\n of zeroes?\r\n <\/p>\r\n

I think I have an idea. This was written in Japan. In Japan, and in many other Asian countries, large numbers<\/a> are grouped in myriads (every 10000). is called man<\/i> (万), is called oku<\/i> (億), is called cho<\/i> (兆). However in Western counting, large numbers are grouped in 1000s - thousand, million, billion, trillion, etc. So, it's\r\n likely that the person writing the check wrote \"19050\", read it as \"1 man<\/i> 9050\", and incorrectly translated to \"1 thousand 9 hundred 50\". Maybe...\r\n <\/p>\r\n

Anyway, all of this could have been avoided if this person had access to Stephen's num2words<\/tt>! Just let his function spell out the number in words.\r\n <\/p>

num2words(19050)<\/pre>
ans =\r\nnineteen thousand and fifty\r\n<\/pre>
This is the simplest use case, but num2words<\/tt> comes with a wealth of options to customize how the results are returned.\r\n   <\/p>
num2words(19050,'type'<\/span>,'cheque'<\/span>)<\/pre>
ans =\r\nnineteen thousand and fifty dollars only\r\n<\/pre>
Stephen includes a detailed help in the function, so you can learn about all the options just by typing<\/p>
help num2words<\/span><\/pre>
What gave me a little chuckle was that when I looked inside his function, I could see that he made sure that his function\r\n      can count up to Uncentillion<\/i> which is  . So if you need to spell out a number larger than  , you might be out of luck. :)\r\n   <\/p>\r\n   
Comments<\/b><\/p>\r\n   
Give this a try, and let us know what you think here<\/a> or leave a comment<\/a> for Stephen.\r\n   <\/p>