in reply to Re: Calculations with formatted numbers
in thread Calculations with formatted numbers

In the EU the comma is used as decimal point and the dot as grouping opreator... (not really logic but I didn't invent the rules)

Which is different from the US-usage...

Update: I wasted too long time with posting this post... I checked if anyone posted, I clicked preview, create, and then all of a sudden two people had posted :(

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Re^3: Calculations with formatted numbers
by Smylers (Pilgrim) on Feb 15, 2005 at 17:18 UTC
    In the EU the comma is used as decimal point and the dot as grouping opreator..

    That is not exactly true. The EU is a political entity which has come about in the past few decades, and it does not have any impact on how people write numbers (at least, not yet; now you mention it, an EU number-harmonization directive is exactly their kind of thing).

    There are many countries in Europe which have not signed up to being part of the EU but which use a comma as a decimal mark and dot for thousands separator. And the UK and the Republic of Ireland are both members of the EU but use dot and comma the same way as in the USA.

    To help avoid confusion between the different cultural practices of using commas and dots in numbers, the SI and ISO standards say that neither should ever be used as a thousands separator, which should instead be a thin space. The trouble is that it's very hard to persuade a computer to produce such a thin space (especially in a fixed-width terminal window!). More details on this page, Attack of the Thousands Separator.

    Smylers
Re^3: Calculations with formatted numbers
by Random_Walk (Prior) on Feb 15, 2005 at 16:51 UTC

    With the exception of the UK (any others ?) which is EU but does numbers the US way (except billion which here is a million**2, or at least it used to be)

    Cheers,
    R.

    Pereant, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!