title: DecimalFormat negative pattern oddity?
body: <p>I can't find the answer in teh Googles or SO, and it's annoying me.</p>
  
  <p>Reading <a href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/text/DecimalFormat.html" rel="nofollow">the javadocs</a>, I find " If there is an explicit negative subpattern, it serves only to specify the negative prefix and suffix; the number of digits, minimal digits, and other characteristics are all the same as the positive pattern. That means that "#,##0.0#;(#)" produces precisely the same behavior as "#,##0.0#;(#,##0.0#)"." However, this code does not seem to follow with that: </p>
  
  <pre><code>import java.text.DecimalFormat;
  
  public class NumberFormatTest {
      public static void main(String args[]) {
          DecimalFormat df = new DecimalFormat("#,###;(#,###)");
          System.out.println(df.format(-1234.0));
  
          df.applyPattern("#,###;(#)");
          System.out.println(df.format(-1234.0));
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>give an output of </p>
  
  <pre><code>(1,234)
  (1,234
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>(note the missing paren in line 2)</p>
  
  <p>What am I missing?</p>