Yes, {val} is a tool for making attractive and
convenient scientific
notation. The look of {{tl|val}} was discussed at length on both
WT:MOSNUM and WT:MOS and achieved broad support for how it works and
renders numbers. It delimits numbers with narrow spaces that aren’t
really “spaces”; they use CSS <span> tags to move characters. Thus,
the significands can be copied and pasted into Excel where they will
be treated as real numbers without the need to first hand-delete spaces.
The problem with it {val} is outlined here at…
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=2…
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Developer_support_for_parser_function
In a nutshell, about 5 to 10% of the time, {val} gives rounding
errors. For instance, the expression {{val|0.55007|e=6}} will return
a significand of 0.550069.
This is the product of the buggy math-based parser functions it must
use. To date, notwithstanding that Jimbo is solidly behind this, and
that Erik supports the production of the required parser function, no
volunteer developer has stepped up to the plate with a parser function
that can character-counting parser function.
Greg
{{val}} is just a presentational template. It's trivial to create an
equivalent, fixed, parserfunction.