totally agree - hopefully XSD facets provide a solid start to meeting those concrete requrements - thanks.

On 19.12.2012 14:09, Gregor Hagedorn wrote:

On 19 December 2012 20:01,  <jmcclure@hypergrove.com> wrote:

Hi Gregor - the root of the misconception I likely have about significant digits and the like, is that such is one example of a rendering parameter not a semantic property.

It is about semantics, not formatting.

In science and engineering, the number of significant digits is not
used to right align numbers, but to semantically indicate the order of
magnitude of the accuracy and/or precision of a measurement or
quantity. Thus, the weight of a machine can be given as 1.2 t (exact
to +/- 50 kg), 1200 kg  (+/- 1 kg), or 1200.000 g.

This is not part of IEEE floating point numbers, which always have the
type dependent same precision or number of significant digits,
regardless whether this is semantically justified or not. IEEE 754
standard double always has about 16 decimal significant digits, i.e.
the value 1.2 tons will always be given as 1.200000000000000 tons.
This is good for calculations, but lacks the information for final
rounding.

Gregor

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