Global decimal mark use

Question

Is it feasible that one convention will be decided on with regard to the use of a decimal comma or decimal point and similarly, thousand separators? i.e. 1.000 vs 1,000

I don't really understand what you are askin that, but what I know about that notation is that in Anglo-Saxon countries they use the dot for decimal numbers and the comma for thousands, while in Italy the notation is reversed. Fun fact is that, as far as I know, this different notation is implemented in Italian distributions of Microsoft Excel. — , Mar 18 '16 at 23:42

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 18 '16 at 23:43

3

ISO 31-0 says either "," or "." can be used as the decimal sign. Neither of these, just a space, should be used for grouping digits in threes. You'll probably get the world to agree on the choice of "," or "." right after they make one language standard. Not going to happen soon.

answered Mar 18 '16 at 23:43

Robert Israel

448,999

And standards for data exchange like https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#decimal will almost certainly enshrine the decimal point as "." in perpetuity. – Rob Arthan Mar 18 '16 at 23:46
Also in technical context, comma prevails as separator for function arguments. So I would prefer decimal point even the local preference is different... – user251257 Mar 19 '16 at 00:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 18 '16 at 23:51

I use a thin space to separate triples of digits. Whether or not it's blessed by a standards committee, the meaning is clear.

This still leaves the question of what symbol to put after the units digit.

In C++, if you specify a LOCALE for an output stream, then appropriate digit separators are automatically added inside output numbers.

Global decimal mark use

2 Answers2