# Add support for ' (thousands separator) for Printf

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/add-support-for-thousands-separator-for-printf/47030>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [September 21, 2020, 6:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/add-support-for-thousands-separator-for-printf/47030 "2020-09-21T18:22:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ScottPJones](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/scottpjones/32/146_2.png) [@ScottPJones](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ScottPJones)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 6:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/add-support-for-thousands-separator-for-printf/47030/1 "2020-09-21T18:22:17Z")

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Printf, even after the (very nice) rewrite, does not support the `'` thousands separator flag (it is a GNU extension).  
Would a PR adding that be accepted? It’s very nice funcionality to have in practice.

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**Author:** ![oheil](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/oheil/32/220745_2.png) [@oheil](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/oheil)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/add-support-for-thousands-separator-for-printf/47030/2 "2020-09-21T19:43:04Z")

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There was a thread recently:

> [@Is it possible for Julia to print numeric output in the REPL with underscores as digit separators?](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/is-it-possible-for-julia-to-print-numeric-output-in-the-repl-with-underscores-as-digit-separators/44962):
>
> Say I need to compute the size of a cross join before attempting it. My eyes aren’t great. julia\> 1\_000\*144\*30\*20\*15\*18 23328000000 Wait, how many 0s are there? julia\> ans==2\_332\_800\_000 false Urgh. Can I just see the output with the \_ in the first place? Then I could also nicely copy and paste it into future computations.

It’s not about printf so maybe you like it anyways.

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**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 9:58am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/add-support-for-thousands-separator-for-printf/47030/3 "2020-09-22T09:58:17Z")

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> [@ScottPJones](#):
>
> Would a PR adding that be accepted?

I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be accepted in general, but I think that these things always depend on the PR.

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**Author:** ![ScottPJones](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/scottpjones/32/146_2.png) [@ScottPJones](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ScottPJones)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/add-support-for-thousands-separator-for-printf/47030/4 "2020-09-22T14:31:06Z")

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> [@Tamas\_Papp](#):
>
> I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t be accepted in general, but I think that these things always depend on the PR.

I just didn’t want to waste any time to write up a PR, unless it looked like people were interested in having this GNU extension added.