On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Greg L <greg_l_at_wikipedia(a)comcast.net> wrote:
If so, then we might as well throw up our hands that
trying to delimit numbers via math functions is a lost cause.
Right.
I mean— it can be done— you just have to have the computer doing
either symbolic manipulation in the right base, or doing effectively
infinite precision math. There is software for this. It's complicated
and probably doesn't belong in MediaWiki.
Joe random coder who tried to accomplish the same task (delimiting) in
the same way (using math on floating point values) via any popular
computer language would encounter the same problems.
What you really want, as far as I can tell, is string functions, not math.
Or… really what you want is a full programming language, with its
compliment of iteration and string mangling functions, to handle your
document formatting. Such a thing can be done safely to some degree or
another (as our web-browsers prove), but I'll leave it to someone else
to propose it. I'll just sit back and enjoy watching the messenger
get stabbed. :)