title: Numbers localization in desktop applications
body: <p>In  the number <strong>decimal category</strong> of Unicode, 460 decimal characters are defined (see <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/language/numerals.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this page</a> for some examples). Unfortunately I could not find any character representing a digit regardless of its appearance. As a result, currently only Western Arabic numeral characters are understood by most software as digits. So you can not for example enter other number characters in the MS Excel.</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/REIqY.gif" alt="Table of digits in various writing systems"></p>
  
  <p>If Unicode had (at least) 10 code for digits 0 to 9 as pure numbers, not a glyph, we could use them in almost all normal usage, and host environment could show localized number glyphs according  to user's locale. Also we could use any of the 460 decimal Unicode numbers when we want to work with number glyphs as a string.</p>
  
  <p>On the other hand, if we accept the current characters U+0030 to u+0039 as pure digit numbers, then we need ten new character for Western Arabic numerals. This implementation seems also to be more backward compatible. Also the names of the characters U+0030 to U+0039 do not refer to any specific number's appearance. </p>
  
  <p>Obviously we can hard-code all 460 decimal numeral characters in the app and internally  treat with them as numbers, but I am looking for a more suitable solution. The issue becomes more complicated if we also consider 224+464 other Unicode number characters (Nl category + No category) that include Roman and Old-Persian numbers. </p>
  
  <p>How can we solve this issue with an OS wide solution? </p>
  
  <p>See also <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/q/13757310/752603">Numbers localization in Web applications</a></p>