[Bug 21599] format-number() integer-part grouping overly prescriptive

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=21599

--- Comment #1 from Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> ---
The two specifications have a different history and we've done a fair bit to
converge them. I think the main differences remaining are that format-number
controls the choice of grouping-separator externally, which means the same
character is always used at different positions, whereas format-integer allows
different grouping separators in different positions, e.g. "(999)999-9999".
(Though I see that there's an opportunity to make this more clear!)

When you say it's "overly prescriptive" am I right in thinking you feel the
rules could be described in simpler (or less procedural) language, or are you
really asking us to leave things more to the discretion of the implementation?

Clearly an implementation that can achieve the same effect with a simpler
algorithm is perfectly at liberty to do so.

If you think the language can be simplified without introducing ambiguities,
I'm happy to hear your concrete suggestions.

As for converging the language of the two specs, it would be nice if it can be
done, but I'd say it's risky at this stage - experience shows that it's very
hard to get these things right, and if commonality of text is the only benefit,
I don't think it's worth the risk.

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Received on Saturday, 6 April 2013 09:24:21 UTC