Re: text in programming languages, Unicode in strings

On Mon, 20 May 2024 15:51:34 -0000 (UTC)
"Stephen Fuld" <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> wrote:

Scott Lurndal wrote:
 

"Stephen Fuld" <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> writes: 

MitchAlsup1 wrote: 

 

And I miss some equivalent of picture clauses in C every time I
see, including in this NG, a number consisting of a string of say
8 or 9 or more digits without the every three digit separator
character, which sure makes reading such numbers easier.  :-( 

 
printf has supported that capability for decades.
 
$ LANG=en_US.utf8 printf "%'10.2f\n" $(( 1540.0 * 179.47 + (7928 +
401 - 535)  * 67.61 + 2295 * 173.35  + 3230 * 191.00 + 192 * 750.15
+ 150 * 509.85 + 254 * 6> 2,505,496.61 

 
If the mechanisms that you and Anton present were so easily available,
why do I see so many instances of "non separated" outputs?  Are they
too recent, or are programmers too lazy, or do they believe that users
don't care (i.e. that I am in a minority)?
 

All three and more. It's none-recent, but not universally available
extension.
4th reason - output formatted this way is less
machine-readable which is important downside on comp.arch.
5th reason is that separators are culture-dependent. How many European
countries use comma-separated triads? I think, very few.