decimal separator in MathML

David Carlisle said:
>
>>I forget to cite the trouble with decimal sign.
> what exactly is the trouble that you see, and what maekup would you
> suggest that didnt have the same problem?

Is asuming presentational representation of concept. somewhat as i in
imaginary numbers is presentational somewhat as / in rational is also
presentational.

If there is emphasis on elimination of presentational "," "/", "i" and
even "+" from encoding of numbers (4.4.1.1.3 Examples). I see natural
also that presentational symbol for decimals was substituted.

One could use some entity for the decimal mark but i find more
interesting markup.

<cn type="rational"> 12342 <sep/> 2342342 </cn>
<cn type="complex-cartesian"> 12.3 <sep/> 5 </cn>
<cn type="complex-polar"> 2 <sep/> 3.1415 </cn>

maybe just something like

<cn type="real"> 12345 <sep/> 7 </cn>

with default renderings

12342 / 2342342
12.3 + 5 i
Polar( 2 , 3.1415 )

and

12345.7

>> content MathML would not asume
>> presentational stuff for something like 3.1416, rendered as 3.1416 or
>> 3,1416 (Spain).
>
> Nothing in the MathML specification assumes that <cn>3.1416</cn> is
> rendered as 3.1416. if a system renders it as 3,1416 then that os
> perfectly conformant.

The presentational stuff is in the encoding not in the rendering.
Somewhat as a/b the "/" is presentational but, of course, you can render
it as a/b, a  &divide; b, a b^{-1}, or

a
-
b

> As would be an input document that used
> <cn>3,1416</cn> Note that it's fairly easy to do this kind of change
> while displaying from mathml markup as each number is explictly tagged
>  for example if you are using xsl to style your mathml you'd just add
> <xsl:template match="m:cn"><xsl:value-of
> select="translate(.,'.',',')"/></xsl:template> It is much harder to
> cope with such presentational differences if
> numbers are just part of an unmarked up text stream.

<p>Notation in mathematics is dependant of countries, for example that
English write as <math><cn type="real">12,345,678.90</cn></math> Spanish
educators type as <math><cn type="real">12.345.678,90</cn></math></p>

> David


Juan R.

Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE)

Received on Monday, 17 July 2006 13:56:28 UTC