Re: Should we extend xsd:decimal?

On Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 10:39, Pierre-Antoine Champin <pierre-antoine@w3.org>
wrote:

> Dear Semantic Web community,
>
> an issue has been raised some time ago about the DCAT-3 specification
> [1], related to the use of `xsd:decimal` as the range a property, and
> how a seemingly correct JSON-LD document may produce ill-formed
> `xsd:decimal` literals [2].
>
> Exploring the possible solutions to this issue, I came to the conclusion
> that
>
> - it is a shame that `xsd:decimal` does not support the E notation [3]
> just like `xsd:double` does, and
> - actually, many implementations (of RDF, SPARQL, OWL...) do support the
> E notation for `xsd:decimal`.
>
> I created a github repo at
>
>      http://github.com/pchampin/xsd_decimal
>
> to document this issue and the current state of implementations, and
> discuss whether updating the normative definition of `xsd:decimal` would
> be a good idea or not.
>
> Please chime in if you are interested


Since we are talking about XML Schema datatyping, it is important to figure
out what the XML community think about the idea. Could you stick a blog
post somewhere on w3.org with an overview of what’s being suggested (beyond
RDF details), then we can bounce it around XML hangouts like XML-DEV.

I assume you are thinking of updating the actual xsd:decimal spec rather
than just its RDF representation, otherwise it would be confusing if the
new variation leaked back into XML settings where it isn’t considered valid.

From a quick look around eg
http://zvon.org/xxl/XMLSchemaTutorial/Output/ser_types_st7.html my sense is
that there is too much out there for this change to be feasible.

“The element "A" represents a number (decimal), which must not be in the
scientific format (e.g. 1.5E+10 is forbidden - such numbers are not
processed by XSLT, for example).”

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/xml-schema/0596002521/re62.html
teaches that "1234.456E+2" (scientific notation ("E+2") is forbidden)

http://books.xmlschemata.org/relaxng/ch19-77057.html

“The following values are invalid: 1 234.456 (spaces are forbidden),
1234.456E+2 (scientific notation—E+2—is forbidden), + 1234.456 (spaces are
forbidden), or+1,234.456 (delimiters between thousands are forbidden).”

This is without considering sites like Stack Overflow, or specific XML
languages like XAuery here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36337725/scientific-notation-to-whole-numbers

Cheers,

Dan

p.s. also nearby,
https://ontology2.com/the-book/decimal-the-missing-datatype.html




>
>    pa
>
> [1] https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/1536
> [2]
>
> https://json-ld.org/playground/#startTab=tab-nquads&json-ld=%7B%22%40context%22%3A%7B%22ex%22%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2Fns%2F%22%2C%22xsd%22%3A%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2001%2FXMLSchema%23%22%2C%22ex%3Afoo%22%3A%7B%22%40type%22%3A%22xsd%3Adecimal%22%7D%7D%2C%22ex%3Afoo%22%3A%5B12.3%5D%7D
> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_notation#E_notation
>
>