Clarify that the PEP intent is not to serve as an

internationalization tool or to accommodate every
possible convention.  It intends to provide a
generally useful tool for improving readability in
many contexts.

Also, clarify the groupings are for the integer part
of a number.  Digits to the right of the decimal point
are unchanged.
This commit is contained in:
Raymond Hettinger 2009-03-16 07:24:12 +00:00
parent dc3abfc0d3
commit 74e39f49b6
1 changed files with 22 additions and 9 deletions

View File

@ -35,7 +35,8 @@ in detail.
.. _`many other challenges`: http://docs.python.org/library/locale.html#background-details-hints-tips-and-caveats
It is not the goal to replace the locale module or to
It is not the goal to replace the locale module, to perform
internationalization takes, or
accommodate every possible convention. Such tasks are better
suited to robust tools like `Babel`_ . Instead, our goal is to
make a common, everyday task easier for many users.
@ -59,12 +60,6 @@ Research so far
Scanning the web, I've found that thousands separators are
usually one of COMMA, DOT, SPACE, APOSTROPHE or UNDERSCORE.
James Knight observed that Indian/Pakistani numbering systems
group by hundreds. Ben Finney noted that Chinese group by
ten-thousands. Eric Smith pointed-out that these are already
handled by the "n" specifier in the locale module (albeit only
for integers).
Visual Basic and its brethren (like `MS Excel`_) use a completely
different style and have ultra-flexible custom format
specifiers like::
@ -157,8 +152,11 @@ Examples::
format(1234, "8,d") --> ' 1,234'
format(1234, "8_d") --> ' 1_234'
This proposal meets mosts needs , but it comes at the expense
of being a little more complicated to learn and remember.
This proposal meets mosts needs, but it comes at the expense
of taking a bit more effort to parse. Not every possible
convention is covered, but at least one of the options (spaces
or underscores) should be readable, understandable, and useful
to folks from many diverse backgrounds.
As shown in the examples, the *width* argument means the total
length including the thousands separators and decimal separators.
@ -220,6 +218,21 @@ Commentary
is to set the convention once and have it apply everywhere (others
commented that locale already provides a way to do this).
* There are some precedents for grouping digits in the fractional
part of a floating point number, but this PEP does not venture into
that territory. Only digits to the left of the decimal point are
grouped. This does not preclude future extensions; it just focuses
on a single, generally useful extension to the formatting language.
* James Knight observed that Indian/Pakistani numbering systems
group by hundreds. Ben Finney noted that Chinese group by
ten-thousands. Eric Smith pointed-out that these are already
handled by the "n" specifier in the locale module (albeit only
for integers). This PEP does not attempt to support all of those
possibilities. It focuees on a single, relatively common grouping
convention that offers a quick way to improve readability in many
(though not all) contexts.
Copyright
=========