Re: Tibetan half digits

From: Alain LaBont/e'/ (alb@sct.gouv.qc.ca)
Date: Thu Oct 24 1996 - 09:40:51 EDT


At 13:52 23/10/1996 -0700, Dr. L. Rucker wrote:
>>At 12:33 23/10/1996 -0700, Rick McGowan wrote:
>>>Michael --
>>>
>>>The Tibetan half-numbers, from what I could gather speaking with the
Tibetan
>>>group who visited San Jose last year, have no "inherent" numerical value as
>>>such. They represent subtracting 0.5 (or one-half) from the number in
which
>>>they appear as the last digit; as explained in the standard. Maybe that's
>>not
>>>clear enough.
>>>
>>>For example a string like:
>>> digit-9 digit-8 halfdigit-3 (9, 8, /3)
>>>
>>>represents the number
>>> nine hundred eighty two and five tenths
>>>or
>>> nine hundred eighty two point five
>>
>>
>>Michael, this calls for 2 simultaneous things in a future version of ISO/IEC
>>14651 (when ISO/IEC 10646-1 will be published to document these characters):
>>
>>1-by default, sort these like special characters, in order of course
>>2-suggest in a non normative annex as an example documenting this, that
>> prehandling be used to replace the last digit of a series by an in-between
>> = (1/2) character following the preceding digit, as Rick explains very
well.
>>
>>Alain LaBonti
>>
>>cc UNICODE, Rick, SC22/WG20
>>
>>
>>
>Why is there need to accommodate this variant as a standard, except in terms
>of subroutines for accurate input and output uniquely for those users who
>wish to use them? I may be missing the point, but this seems to be a simple
>numerical formatting issue for a specific and limited input group. The data
>standard can remain unchanged and still allow for separate "numerical
>translation" subroutines without disturbing that standard.

We're not talking about formatting but about ordering these character
strings. It does not disturb any standard.

Alain LaBonti



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