title: jQuery and Number Formatting
body: <p>It seems that number formatting in javascript and jQuery is a bit of a quagmire.</p>
  
  <p>I have a table which contains a bunch of numbers.  I want to change the numbers as the user interacts with jQuery elements on the page, but I also want the numbers to be formatted with commas and (+/-) signs as the user interacts with the table.  As far as I can tell, I can't perform any mathematical operations at all on the numbers in their formatted state.  Also, formatting the new numbers on the fly (without sending back to server) is possible with a regex, but inconvenient.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a better way to format and work with this stuff on the fly?  I need to do math on the formatted numbers and generate new formatted numbers from the math.</p>