translating foreign data

[Ethan Furman]

I need to translate numeric data in a string format into a binary format.  I know there are at least two different 
methods of representing parts less that 1, such as "10.5" and "10,5".  The data is encoded using code pages, and can 
vary depending on the file being read (so I can't rely on current locale settings).

I'm sure this is a solved problem, but I'm not finding those solutions.  Any pointers?

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~Ethan~