I have slid by avoiding using field formatting in Smarty templates for some time. However, I just ran across a case where a dollar value HAD to be formatted correctly for display.

It turns out it is pretty easy to use formatting. In the actual template you have code that looks like the template code below. We have a field called bid that is being formatted according to the number_format function.

In the smarty/libs/plugins directory we create the file modifier_number_format.php. This tells smarty (when it loads) to pull in the modifier (formatting) function as defined in the file. That way our template can address it at will.

As you recall, all we are doing is calling the php number_format function with a bunch of arguments. It helps to remember that Smarty really is a bunch of PHP code under the covers.

So, in the specific case we are formatting a number ($number), with 2 decimals (2), a decimal point (".") and a thousands separator (",").

Using this as a model you can move on to some really interesting formatting using all kinds of PHP tools at you disposal.