From ... From: Erik Naggum Subject: Re: Formatting: separating commas for non-decimals Date: 1999/11/15 Message-ID: <3151655297035748@naggum.no>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 548792140 References: <382DB704.CDE07BCE@fisec.com> <86k8nkmp03.fsf@coulee.tdb.com> mail-copies-to: never X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@eunet.no X-Trace: oslo-nntp.eunet.no 942666499 9658 193.71.66.49 (15 Nov 1999 11:48:19 GMT) Organization: Naggum Software; +47 8800 8879 or +1 510 435 8604; fax: +47 2210 9077; http://www.naggum.no NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Nov 1999 11:48:19 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp * Marco Antoniotti | I know CL is an ANSI standard, but in Italy you would write | | 21.975.308.442 | | (at the exchange rate of 1.780 ITL per USD). I.e. you'd use points | instead of commas. :) (defun print-money (lire) (format nil "ITL ~,,'.:D" lire)) (print-money 21975308442) => "ITL 21.975.308.442" | So, this is an issue of "internationalization". using the period (espesially when mislabeled "full stop") as the grouping delimiter and comma as the fraction mark is REALLY STUPID. as early as in second grade, when I was first exposed to the other use of comma, I raised my hand and asked the completely befuddled teacher why we used the comma both for decimal point and a list separator when that clearly made it easy to get things wrong. I recall that she got angry when I insisted it was dumb, and I can probably trace my years of arduous involvement in standards committees to these traumatic early childhood events. the really sad thing is that ISO buys into this comma crap, too. #:Erik -- Attention Microsoft Shoppers! MS Monopoly Money 6.0 are now worthless.