LC-197. scale: Allow negative scale?

Dear Mr. Duerst:

The W3C XML Schema Working Group has spent the last several months working
through the comments received from the public on the last-call draft of the
XML Schema specification. We thank you for the comments you made on our
specification during our last-call comment period, and want to make sure you
know that all comments received during the last-call comment period have
been recorded in our last-call issues list
(<http://www.w3.org/2000/05/12-xmlschema-lcissues>).

You raised the point registered as issue LC-197, which suggests the
datatypes spec be changed to allow negative values for precision.

This issue was discussed in our conference call of 2000-07-27.

Jim Trezzo, in summarizing your issue, indicated that we should separate out
the value-space implications from the lexical-space implications.  The
value-space implications would be that the last n digits of the integer must
be 0.  Oracle and RDB do allow this; but it was noted that this usage is not
widespread. The lexical-space implications are that one might say if scale
is -3, you write 5 and mean 5000. Or perhaps you would write 5000, and say
that 5123 would be outside the value space.

The Working Group voted not to include this change in 1.0.  The majority
felt that this change would cause confusion, and needed to be considered in
the context of the general units question, which has been postponed.

Note that your comments regarding corrections to precision scale were
integrated into the the latest datatypes spec.

It would be helpful to us to know whether you are satisfied with the
decision taken by the WG on this issue, or wish your dissent from the WG's
decision to be recorded for consideration by the Director of the W3C.

Regards,
Don Mullen
XML Schema Language Working Group

Received on Monday, 9 October 2000 17:34:06 UTC