From: Addison Phillips (addison@yahoo-inc.com)
Date: Wed Sep 20 2006 - 17:13:53 CDT
Locales that use spaces in digit groups generally use the regular
non-breaking space character (U+00A0). Less common spaces I would avoid:
they may not translate well to legacy encodings or might not have glyphs
available in specific fonts. The "missing glyph" symbol is usually some
variation on "big hollow box".
U+00A0 is generally available in most encodings and fonts and has the
desired effect. Whether it is proportional or not depends, in large
part, on the font used.
Addison
-- Addison Phillips Globalization Architect -- Yahoo! Inc. Internationalization is an architecture. It is not a feature. Guy Steele wrote: > When numerals are to be formatted in formal scientific texts > according to the custom of using space to separate the digits > in to groups of three, as in "27 312 416.315 67 m/s", > what is the recommended Unicode character to use for > this separation? Obvious candidates are > > U+2006 SIX-PER-EM SPACE > > U+2008 PUNCTUATION SPACE > (because then the gap would be equal to the gap caused > by the decimal point?) > > U+2009 THIN SPACE > > U+200A HAIR SPACE > > U+202F NARROW NON-BREAKING SPACE > (because non-breaking is desirable in running text) > > What is current practice? What is recommended by Unicode savants? > > --Thanks, > Guy Steele > > ---------------------------------------------------------- > Appendix > > I have checked with NIST and IEEE. NIST Special Publication 811 (1995) > at recommends use of "a thin, fixed space": > > 10.5.3 Grouping digits > Because the comma is widely used as the decimal marker outside > the United States, it should not be used to separate digits into groups > of three. Instead, digits should be separated into groups of three, > counting from the decimal marker towards the left and right, by the > use of a thin, fixed space. However, this practice is not usually > followed for numbers having only four digits on either side of the > decimal marker except when uniformity in a table is desired. > > See http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/pdf/sp811.pdf . > > The style file for IEEE standards specifies grouping-by-threes only for > tables, > and specifies only the use of "a space": > > 15.4.2 Numerical values > To facilitate the comprehension of numbers, digits should be > separated into groups of three, counting from the decimal point > toward the left and right. The groups should be separated by a space, > rather than by a comma, period, or dash. If the magnitude of the > number is less than one, the decimal point should be preceded by a > zero. In numbers of four digits, the space is not necessary, unless > four-digit numbers are grouped in a column with numbers of five > digits or more. > > http://standards.ieee.org/guides/style/2005Style.pdf > ---------------------------------------------------------- > >
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