I've been looking through A re-introduction to javascript and came across the array method toLocaleString().

I did some googling (something to do with localization?) but am having difficulty figuring it out.

What is a locale? What's the difference between toString() and toLocaleString() in javascript?

I've been looking through A re-introduction to javascript and came across the array method toLocaleString().

I did some googling (something to do with localization?) but am having difficulty figuring it out.

What is a locale? What's the difference between toString() and toLocaleString() in javascript?

• javascript
• arrays
• string

Share Improve this question Follow asked Feb 26, 2015 at 7:43 Luke DieboldLuke Diebold 15322 silver badges1010 bronze badges 1

• It's like how dates or numbers are written differently amongst languages, like American (mm/dd/yyyy) vs British (dd-mm-yyyy) which can be observed with Date.prototype.toLocaleString(). – Ja͢ck Commented Feb 26, 2015 at 7:45

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Sorted by: Reset to default 4

toString() this will just convert the string format without any conversion at all (unless you try to overwrite it).

toLocaleString() will convert to string format and apply a conversion base on Locale. Example: if your Locale is set to US (U.S. English locale)

var number = 3500
console.log(number.toLocaleString());

This will print (in the console): "3,500". But if you were using only toString() you would get "3500" (without the ma for the thousands).

It works for currencies, dates, times, etc...

More information here: https://developer.mozilla/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Number/toLocaleString