I’m presenting a pair of x,y coordinates between 0 and 1000 with one digit of precision. It’s a display of map coordinates your mouse moves over, so it’s constantly changing and often a blur. If I’m doing this right, the user will see the normal decimal mark they always see on their computer.
My first thought was to separate x and y with a comma, like would commonly be done in my locale:
123.4,567.8
But that looks weird and bad if your normal decimal mark is a comma:
123,4,567,8
It’s very busy if I just list the numbers with a space between them; I think something would help.
123.4 567.8
My question is, if you’re in a locale where comma is your decimal mark, and you were listing x and y coordinates with 1 decimal digit, what separator character would you use between numbers?
I was thinking of using the pipe (|) character as the separator, wrapping the whole thing in parentheses, and then dimming out all except the integer values so it’s easier to keep track of as the numbers whiz by:
(123.4|567.8)
The pipe character seems like it would work well with either a comma or a period, but maybe less is more and just go with the space while dimming the decimal:
123.4 567.8
So in addition to my question about how lists of numbers are separated in other locales, does anyone prefer any of these over the other?
(I’m writing a freeware map tool for Star Control 2.)
That’s not bad, but I think I like the pipe better. I think I got that from travian, where they use (xxx|yyy) format for coordinates, but no decimal point.
This is one of those questions I’ve never thought of before, but now I want to know the answer. And it seems like there ought to be a “General Questions” answer to this one. How are ordered pairs officially written, in countries that use commas as “decimal points”?
Those are all possibilities. I do support color, and the interface isn’t determined yet. You can see a screenshot of what the program is currently, but it’s not much since I just started it Monday.*
You can see in that screen shot that coordinates are being displayed, but obviously that’s not how and where they will be in the finished interface.
*I was able to download all the planet, star and cluster data from the Planetary Database linked at the top of this table and was off to the races. Drawing the stars, including mouse wheel zooming and drag scrolling, was a piece of cake. My biggest concern is how to place star and cluster name text without having to manually craft text locations for all 502 stars, but I think I have an idea to mostly automate it.
Like Thudlow Boink, I am still curious about what you use to separate numbers in a list when comma is your decimal mark. It never occurred to me before, but now that it has, I’m curious.
My German is not really up to snuff these days, but I do remember that they use the comma instead of the decimal point. So I googled “Geordnetes Paar” to see what came up.
It looks to me like they ordinarily use the comma, but switch to a semicolon when the pair contains decimals.
You certainly could use a space as separator. Curiously, when we write out matrices, we use only spaces as separators, except for 1 x n matrices (also called row vectors where put in commas. Clearly you can leave them out and should to be consistent. Whether that is regularly done is another matter.
In Quebec documents in French use commas as the decimal separator, while in English we use points. I’d have to see a French math text to know what they’d do.
A related question: how do they write something 123,456.789? I’m not sure but I think they do 123 456,789. That would mean using a space is also forbidden. Until the separatist government took power in 1976, Quebec just followed the rest of Canada, but they had to do it just like in France, so they mucked it up to no obvious purpose.
That’s correct. It’s how I learned and always used it.
(the difference between the decimal separators in German and English is a permanent nuisance if you’re a programmer like me and often switch between writing for a German or an English speaking audience)
In German, you’d write 123,456.789 as 123.456,789, so the respective separators are switched. That’s why it’s oftena hassle to switch between writing numbers in English and German.
ETA: I just see that you used the example from the OP, I interpreted 123,456.789 as on ordinal number and not a tuple. As a tuple, in German you’d write 123;456,789.
Windows has an explicit entry in its localisation system for list separators.
For instance, in Windows 7, go to Control Panel – Region and Language – Formats tab, select a language and locale from the drop-down and click on Additional settings at the bottom. You’ll see the expected decimal symbol, digit grouping symbol and list separator for the selected locale.
I understand that Star Control 2 is an MS-DOS application, so you presumably don’t have access to the Windows API. At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be a setting for a list separator character in the C runtime’s locale support or in the standard C++ libraries.
Yes, formal documents use 123 456,789 (for amounts, we even put the dollar sign at the end!). And the normal list separator (for sequences of numbers, XY coordinates, etc.) is a semicolon. In everyday life, most people use a decimal point, even millenials.
However, I’m pretty sure I first learned to use 123 456,78 $ in primary school, during the progressive implementation of SI in Canada but before the PQ came to power in Québec. It’s certainly the way things are written on Canadian government sites or income tax forms in French, so it’s not a strict Québec thing.
My program isn’t part of Star Control 2 or The Urquan Masters; it’s a standalone program that will be freeware that anyone can download and run if they like, and to that end I will make the source code available as well. Much like I did for the character planner I wrote for DDO: Not affiliated with the game, standalone program, free for everyone.
My character planner program probably has around 500 users – it’s a low population game, for sure – including a small group of linux users. For this new starmap utility, I’m expecting maybe 50 people, tops, would use it. The only reason I’m writing it is because I just want to use it myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think of other users while designing it.
In the end, yes, I can look up the actual separator character used via API. That never really occurred to me, mainly because I’m looking for a setup that works the same regardless of the decimal mark in use. I’d rather not go down the rabbit hole of tailoring the display for a list of alternate languages.
When writing in French, I use a comma as decimal separator, which as you say is the common symbol to use in French and not any sort of government conspiracy designed to personally piss off Hari Seldon. For ordered tuples of numbers, I typically use commas as a separator as well, since most of the time the entries will be integers or fractions. In the few cases where I had to use ordered tuples (or sets) with decimal numbers, I’ve asked myself the OP’s question, and ended up either using a comma plus a space as separator, or sometimes a semicolon. From what I’ve seen of my students from francophone African countries, many of them also use a semicolon as tuple separator as well.