[plug] Calculator that uses commas , for thousands seperation

[Richard Meyer]

On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 20:42 +0800, Gavin Chester wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-07-12 at 11:19 +0800, Richard Meyer wrote:
> 
> -snip-
> 
> > > Anyway it was along the lines of Australia will be adopting the
> > > numerical formats supported by the EU. This, from memory, involves
> > > replacing the humble '.' decimal separator with a ',' and I think spaces
> > > in between each "set" of thousand. Or something of that nature. Can't
> > > remember the time frame, I think it was something like 10 years. 
> > > 
> > > There was also something about date separators changing from '/' to
> > > something else.. 
> > > 
> > > Others please feel free to jump in and correct any mistakes or
> > > oversights, coffee hasn't kicked in yet.. 
> > 
> > Yup, that's the European format
> > 123,456.78  becomes
> > 123 456,78  Gonna confuse the crap out of you for a few years  ;-)
> > 
> > Had it in South Africa since the seventies.
> 
> What does this mean in terms of teaching the kids the SI* units that
> have existed for god knows how long as the standard for all/most
> disciplines?  This convention you're talking about breaks with that as
> far as I can see, so it is just rubbish to be confusing the kids and
> public IMHO.
> 
> *(SI = Systeme International d'Unites - you have to say it with a French
> accent ;-) for those not familiar)

Far as I know that IS the SI way. It's just the way you separate the
digits that's different to what you've been using.

Strange, though, if you go here
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html they have no
separators, and the decimal is a point (but it is an American site).

Under http://www.bipm.fr/en/practical_info/faq/conversions.html

There is a pointer to a .pdf doc where I found the following

> The digits of numerical values having more than four digits on either side of the decimal
> marker are separated into groups of three using a thin, fixed space
> counting from both the left and right of the decimal marker. For example, 15 739.012 53
> is highly preferred to 15739.01253. Commas are not used to separate digits into groups
> of three. (See Sec. 10.5.3.)

Note that they're still using the decimal point.

In Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system
we find

> In English, the decimal point should be written as the full stop, i.e.
> the number "twenty four point five one" would be written as "24.51".
> (This was introduced by the CIPM in 1997). In all other languages, the
> comma is used instead, (i.e. "24,51").

Which would accord with SA since there were 2 official languages - now
there are 11.

So if Oz is wanting to adopt the comma, tell your minister to remove his
head form where-ever he is hiding it at present. 

Nice set of questions - gave me an excuse to use my Google-fu - actual
All-the-Web-fu, since I don't Google, due to political convictions   ;-)

And, oh yes, I have seen dates separated by dashes before, and I've seen
idiots ^H^H progressive types in the US who are using periods to
separate parts of phone numbers, which makes them look like malformed IP
addresses.

-- 
Richard Meyer <meyerri at westnet.com.au>
Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation.
                -- Johnny Hart