JQuery Number Formatting

I would recommend looking at this article on how to use javascript to handle basic formatting:

function addCommas(nStr)
{
    nStr += '';
    x = nStr.split('.');
    x1 = x[0];
    x2 = x.length > 1 ? '.' + x[1] : '';
    var rgx = /(\d+)(\d{3})/;
    while (rgx.test(x1)) {
        x1 = x1.replace(rgx, '$1' + ',' + '$2');
    }
    return x1 + x2;
}

source: http://www.mredkj.com/javascript/numberFormat.html

While jQuery can make your life easier in a million different ways I would say it's overkill for this. Keep in mind that jQuery can be fairly large and your user's browser needs to download it when you use it on a page.

When ever using jQuery you should step back and ask if it contributes enough to justify the extra overhead of downloading the library.

If you need some sort of advanced formatting (like the localization stuff in the plugin you linked), or you are already including jQuery it might be worth looking at a jQuery plugin.

Side note - check this out if you want to get a chuckle about the over use of jQuery.

Using the jQuery Number Format plugin, you can get a formatted number in one of three ways:

// Return as a string
$.number( 1234.5678, 2 ); // Returns '1,234.57'

// Place formatted number directly in an element:
$('#mynum').number( 1234.5678 ); // #mynum would then contain '1,235'

// Replace existing number values in any element
$('span.num').number( true, 2 ); // Formats and replaces existing numbers in those elements.

If you don't like the format, or you need to localise, there are other parameters that let you choose how the number gets formatted:

.number( theNumber, decimalPlaces, decimalSeparator, thousandsSeparator )

You can also get jQuery Number Format from GitHub.