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5.14: How can I output my numbers with commas added?

(contributed by brian d foy and Benjamin Goldberg)

You can use Number::Format to separate places in a number. It handles
locale information for those of you who want to insert full stops
instead (or anything else that they want to use, really).

This subroutine will add commas to your number:

sub commify {
local $_ = shift;
1 while s/^([-+]?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/;
return $_;
}

This regex from Benjamin Goldberg will add commas to numbers:

s/(^[-+]?\d+?(?=(?>(?:\d{3})+)(?!\d))|\G\d{3}(?=\d))/$1,/g;

It is easier to see with comments:

s/(
^[-+]? # beginning of number.
\d+? # first digits before first comma
(?= # followed by, (but not included in the match) :
(?>(?:\d{3})+) # some positive multiple of three digits.
(?!\d) # an *exact* multiple, not x * 3 + 1 or whatever.
)
| # or:
\G\d{3} # after the last group, get three digits
(?=\d) # but they have to have more digits after them.
)/$1,/xg;



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