Custom locale configuration for float conversion

Question

I need to convert a string in the format \"1.234.345,00\" to the float value 1234345.00.

One way is to use repeated str.repl

Answer 1

If you pop open the source code for locale, you can see that there is a variable called _override_localeconv (which seems to be for testing purposes).

# With this dict, you can override some items of localeconv's return value.
# This is useful for testing purposes.
_override_localeconv = {}

Trying the following does seem to override the dictionary without changing the entire locale, though it probably has some unintended consequences, especially since changing locales isn't threadsafe. Be careful!

import locale

locale._override_localeconv["thousands_sep"] = "."
locale._override_localeconv["decimal_point"] = ","

print locale.atof('123.456,78')

Try it online!