How to get the currency symbol by currency code from the PHP Intl ( ICU library )

Question

In PHP I know currency codes (EUR, GBP, USD...), but I do not know locale. I need to get a currency symbol for them

GBP -> £
EUR -> €
USD -> $

Using

$obj = new \NumberFormatter( null, \NumberFormatter::CURRENCY);
echo $obj->formatCurrency( null, 'EUR');

I can get € 0.00, so the NumberFormatter library can convert currency code to currency symbol. But how to get currency symbol only?

$obj = new \NumberFormatter( null, \NumberFormatter::CURRENCY);
$obj->setTextAttribute ( \NumberFormatter::CURRENCY_CODE, 'EUR');
echo $obj->getSymbol ( \NumberFormatter::CURRENCY_SYMBOL);

Also do not do the translation and returns $ always.

Answer 1

Possibly not the best solution but you could always do something like ...

$obj = new \NumberFormatter( 'en_us', \NumberFormatter::CURRENCY);
$formattedValue = $obj->formatCurrency( 0, 'EUR');
$currencySymbol = trim(str_replace('0.00','',$formattedValue));

The important thing is using a locale and value where you know the expected output format (e.g. en_us and 0.00) and you can then pick the currency symbol out correctly.

Note: this might need some adjustment for certain currencies

Answer 2

Unfortunately this isn’t as easy as it should be, but here’s how to get the currency symbol by currency code, for a locale:

function getCurrencySymbol($locale, $currency)
{
    // Create a NumberFormatter
    $formatter = new NumberFormatter($locale, NumberFormatter::CURRENCY);

    // Prevent any extra spaces, etc. in formatted currency
    $formatter->setPattern('¤');

    // Prevent significant digits (e.g. cents) in formatted currency
    $formatter->setAttribute(NumberFormatter::MAX_SIGNIFICANT_DIGITS, 0);

    // Get the formatted price for '0'
    $formattedPrice = $formatter->formatCurrency(0, $currency);

    // Strip out the zero digit to get the currency symbol
    $zero = $formatter->getSymbol(NumberFormatter::ZERO_DIGIT_SYMBOL);
    $currencySymbol = str_replace($zero, '', $formattedPrice);

    return $currencySymbol;
}

Tested with locales: ar, cs, da, de, en, en_GB, en_US, es, fr, fr_CA, he, it, ja, ko, nb, nl, ru, sk, sv, zh

Tested with currencies: AUD, BRL, CAD, CNY, EUR, GBP, HKD, ILS, INR, JPY, KRW, MXN, NZD, THB, TWD, USD, VND, XAF, XCD, XOF, XPF