ICU4J - the same currency symbol either as a prefix or suffix depending on locale

Question

I want to place correctly the $ symbol, either as a prefix or suffix, depending on locale using the MessageFormat class, but without success so far. I need to localize the currency symbol placement, but not the symbol itself.

In my message I use:

The car cost is {0, number, currency}

and I create an instance of MessageFormat calling:

MessageFormat messageFormat = new MessageFormat(msg, locale);

The result is that currency symbol is placed correctly but it has been also changed depending on used locale. For locale en_us I get $, for locale pl_pl I get zł.

So the question is, how to tell MessageFormat to use always the same currency symbol ($ in my case) but putting it (as the prefix or suffix) depending on locale?

Based on MessageFormat manual looks like that {0, number, currency} is formatted using NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance(getLocale()), so I wonder if it is possible at all.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Answer 1

Turns out that it is possible. The CurrencyAmount object, set up as the USD currency, should be passed as an argument to the format method of MessageFormat class.