Talk:Decimal separator

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[edit] Who said Peru?

I'm Peruvian and I use a dot as radix point but this is because the school I grew in is a Brittish school. My last years in school (which I spent in another non-Brittish school), my experience in university and the standard I find in most computers customized to local taste have the comma as the radix point (with a space for the thousands). Said this I could not be someone who has studied this in the Peruvian context but adding my own experience to the oddity that Peru seems to be the point-decimal-separator-using-country among its neighbours I can guess someone has used wrong data, probably provided by exceptions similar to mine. On the other hand, I recognize the use of the dot over the comma could be growing but without a proper source I lay claim to a good reason to doubt this.Undead Herle King (talk) 02:27, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comma or point?

Instead of a stub just one question. What is preferred in Wikipedia at the moment - a decimal point or a decimal comma? Or how we should write numbers here. For example: 7 thousand + 1/3: 7,000.3 or 7.000,3? [this unsigned comment was added 16:04, 4 September 2002 by XJamRastafire, and subsequently moved to the Talk page by Derek Ross]

This is an English language text so we should use 7,000.3 -- Derek Ross 22:56, 20 October 2002
That would be 7,000.3333...
Some people prefer to use a space as a thousands separator, thus: 7 000.333 33 or something like that. I have seen it in some of my textbooks (in the USA). -- User:Juuitchan [15:50, 15 September 2003 as 137.99.216.235]
There's also a dot above notation to indicate repeading digits: 7,000.3̇ (Your brower should display a dot above three.) If more than two digits repeat, then use two dots: 1 / 7 = 0.1̇42857̇. That's one way math books do it, anyway.--69.212.98.139 02:20, 13 November 2004 (UTC)
I believe SI usage for comma marking is the space (7 000 not 7,000), but I'm not sure if there's an SI standard for the decimal separator. T. S. Rice 05:53, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I thought thin space was the SI standard. The trouble with using space here is that full width space makes things confusing (is that one big number or multiple seperate numbers) and thin space suffers from poor font support. Plugwash 02:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It is true that this is English Wikipedia, but perhaps the English Wikipedia is used by the most non native speakers. using comma and point in the same number can be very confusing, but the SI standard would be useful: use space (preferably non-breaking space) as thousand separator and dot (or comma) as decimal separator.Timur lenk 19:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding choice of decimal separator, the definitive answer is in WP:Style#Decimal_points:
"A decimal point is used between the integral and the fractional parts of a decimal; a comma is never used in this role (6.57, not 6,57)."
Regarding choice of thousands separator for numbers greater than 9999, the definitive answer is in WP:Style#Large_numbers:
"Commas are used to break the sequence every three places (2,900,000)."
I'm going to add a Wikilink to WP:Style#Decimal_points to the main article, too, since seeking an answer to this question is probably one of the most common reasons that people come to this article, and it is not obvious where the answer is to be found. NCdave (talk) 06:58, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
BTW, WP:Style#Large_numbers also says, "Billion is understood as 109" (which is probably an even more contentious topic!) NCdave (talk) 07:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Zimbabwe changed to dot

I would like to say that Zimbabae uses the dot after changing from the comma early this year.[this unsigned comment was added 06:51, 16 November 2004 by 202.27.216.185]

[edit] Middle dot

I've changed the term "raised dot" to "middle dot" to facilitate a link to the article on "middle dot". However, if the term "raised" is commonly used, please add it back (and presumably see to the the article on "middle dot". Thincat 10:26, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] which came first

Does no one know if the dot or the comma was first? This seems as such an important change that it would be formal somewhere and noted. Please send me an E-mail if you know. Thanks. lalli.oni@gmail.com --194.144.0.59 15:15, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Map?

I think this needs a map, or at least a more structured list (broken down by continent or language group). Adam Mathias 00:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ireland?

As it seems to generally be a language thing, does anyone know if Irish uses 12,345,678.90 or 12.345.678,90 or something similar to the latter. The reason I ask is because when browsing the Irish wikipedia, I noticed on the page on euro [1] that the exchange rates into euro were given in the format 0,787564 for the Irish pound for example and was just wondering if that's the official Irish language way of doing it. I would've asked over there but my Irish isn't THAT good. - RHeodt 10:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

A few months after you asked this question, Picapica, whose Irish is as good as anyone's, changed all the commas to full stops. I suspect the original page was just copied over from German Wikipedia or something and no one had bothered to change them before. —Angr 08:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic and Persian

Saudi Arabia, and other Arabic countries, use neither a coma nor a dot to separate the decimal part. They use a character very similar to a forward slash (/) but sort of smaller (but not yet a coma.) This also applies to Persian (Farsi) writings. I'm not sure if we should add another category for these countries or not. Also, I'm not sure what name to use for this possible category. In Arabic and Persian, the character is called "Momayyez" (double "y" showing a stress and delay when pronouncing the /y/ sound.) Please contribute your ideas. huji—TALK 18:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Junky links

This page has horrible junky links that link to disambig pages, and some links are simply unnecessary. For example, I removed linke to part, stop, and mark. Wikipedia is not a link dump. Links should only be used to make the current topic more clear.

So please, do not just link everything and anything. And when you do link, make sure it links to the right place. Fresheneesz 21:03, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks huji—TALK 13:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
all links were done by a single user [2]. I've tagged the page for clean-up as he did this to a number of pages and if no one cleans it up by the time I get back I will attempt to clean it up. You can pretty much wholesale remove any links he added. --Crossmr 07:09, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Editing

So, I just did a fairly long edit on this; I hope my contributions helped a bit? Hopefully I didn't mess anything up, as I took quite a few liberties in changing things. T. S. Rice 07:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Switzerland

According to the German Wikipedia [3] and also to my own experience, Switzerland is a dot and not a comma country with regard to the decimal separator in use. --217.162.63.232

I live in Switzerland, and it is definitely a comma country; ISO 31-0 imposed comma is law, and is enforced in aducation an normalization. However, dot as decimal separator filters down for monitarian use, as a result of American influence in the banking system, a powerful element in Swiss economics. -- Dutchguy 10:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1'234'567.89?

I am German, and I have never come across or heard of that style... can anyone attest for its existence? Lewis Trondheim 20:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Not very likely. Both ISO and SI forbid the use of dot and comma as grouping symbols; comma is the preferred decimal separator, but because of persistant use of dot as decimal separator in most English speaking countries, neither symbol should be used for grouping to avoid confusion between grouping symbols and decimal separators. Small spaces are proposed for grouping, but (in handwriting mainly) high commas could be used. But if someone keeps to normalization by using correct grouping symbols, that person would also use a comma as decimal separator as prescribed in the first place. So, 1'234'567,89 is, also in my own experience, commonly used, but not 1'234'567.89 -- Dutchguy 21:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)203.124.0.246 11:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic Decimal Separator

I am not sure if "Arabic Decimal Separator" is in fact different from a comma. It may have been customary previously to use a half-slash-like punctuation. The following are Unicode defined Arabic separators. Click on the links to see how they look like.

  • Arabic Thousands Separator U+066C
  • Arabic Decimal Separator U+066B

I tried setting my Window's regional setting to Saudi Arabic, all I see are the above symbols with Arabic-style numbers. I also tried setting my regional setting to Farsi, the only difference is that it uses a "/" as decimal. --Voidvector 20:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ordered pairs

In countries where the comma is used as the decimal separator, how are ordered pairs (or n-tuples, or sets, for that matter) written when using fractional numbers? How do you distinguish {12.5, 3.7} from {12, 5, 3, 7}? Benandorsqueaks 19:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I assume that there is no space between the numbers when the comma is used as a decimal separator (2,5) but there is a space when it is used to separate terms (2, 5). Comrade4·2 22:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ISO - IEC - CEN - CENELEC - ETSI: they all use the comma

Both the international (ISO, IEC) and European Standardization Organizations (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI) have standardized the use of a comma as the decimal sign and just a space interval as the thousands separator in all languages they publish their standards. Έκτωρ (talk) 19:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1.234.567'89

Does nobody use the raised comma or the apostrophe to seperate the unit form the first decimal? --Error (talk) 02:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

That's correct; nobody uses it. Teemu Leisti (talk) 11:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Invented In Scotland

The teaching In Scotland website

http://www.teachinginscotland.com/tis/63.1.8.html

Seems to indicate that the decimal point originated in Scotland, as this isn't a rubbishy website and has some authority behind ti I was wondering if there should be a mention of it on here...

86.163.189.159 (talk) 03:25, 18 January 2008 (UTC)