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Re: Sorting numeric strings

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On Fri, 04 May 2012 14:19:51 -0700, Gene Wirchenko wrote:

> On Fri, 4 May 2012 20:01:50 +0000 (UTC), Martin Gregorie
> <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> 
>>I think you'll find that using floating point for financial amounts was
>>an abberation introduced by programmers on early 8 and 16 bit micros who
>>wrote financial packages in BASIC.
> 
>      I suspect that it raised its head on earlier systems that did not
> have COBOL or another language with decimal arithmetic.
>
Wrong. I was developing and maintaining accounting systems that held 
financial amounts as binary cents/pence in assembler long before I learnt 
COBOL. All early mainframes up to and including the S/360 and AS/400 (aka 
Future Series, System/38) and ICL 1900/2900/3900 handled financial 
calculations this way.

COBOL merely made this easier - PIC S9(7).99 COMP SYNC.
                  matched with  PIC Z,ZZZ,ZZ9.99DB BLANK WHEN ZERO.

>      With JavaScript, short of writing a fixed-point library, you have
> to use floating point since JavaScript has only one numeric type, namely
> IEEE 754 64-bit floating point.
>
You may use JavaScript for financial calculations. I would not. 
Item: it is normal for currency conversions to be defined as a mandatory 
algorithm defined as a set of integer calculations by the network or 
authority who control the domain that the currency conversion is made in, 
e.g S.W.I.F.T. These do not work if floating point arithmetic is used and 
so are non-compliant.
   
>      The details are the killer.
> 
Quite.


-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |

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Sorting numeric strings Ben <no@way.com> - 2012-04-30 21:27 -0400
  Re: Sorting numeric strings Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2012-04-30 21:39 -0400
  Re: Sorting numeric strings Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-05-01 10:30 -0700
  Re: Sorting numeric strings Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.nospam@virtualinfinity.net> - 2012-05-01 10:53 -0700
    Re: Sorting numeric strings Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-05-01 14:50 -0700
      Re: Sorting numeric strings Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2012-05-01 15:02 -0700
        Re: Sorting numeric strings Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-05-02 14:36 -0700
          Re: Sorting numeric strings Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-05-02 19:57 -0700
          Re: Sorting numeric strings Dr J R Stockton <reply1218@merlyn.demon.co.uk.not.invalid> - 2012-05-03 19:41 +0100
            Re: Sorting numeric strings Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-05-03 17:40 -0700
              Re: Sorting numeric strings Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2012-05-03 18:11 -0700
                Re: Sorting numeric strings Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2012-05-04 20:01 +0000
                Re: Sorting numeric strings Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-05-04 14:19 -0700
                Re: Sorting numeric strings Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2012-05-04 23:36 +0000
                Re: Sorting numeric strings Dr J R Stockton <reply1218@merlyn.demon.co.uk.not.invalid> - 2012-05-06 17:50 +0100
                Re: Sorting numeric strings Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-05-07 10:34 -0700
                Re: Sorting numeric strings Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2012-05-07 12:38 -0500
                Re: Sorting numeric strings glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2012-05-07 17:48 +0000
                Re: Sorting numeric strings Gene Wirchenko <genew@ocis.net> - 2012-05-07 11:42 -0700
  Re: Sorting numeric strings Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2012-05-01 13:38 -0700

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