RE: Outputting a number in "scientific notation" -- is

Yes, it's a bug (well, at any rate, a non-conformance).

XSLT 1.0 says that xsl:value-of converts the number to a string as if by
the string() function.

XPath 1.0 says that when using string() to convert a number, the result
is a "Number" as defined by the XPath grammar - which does not allow an
"e".

The omission of an XML declaration is less serious: all provisions in
the serialization section use "should" rather than "must".

Michael Kay
Software AG
home: Michael.H.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxx
work: Michael.Kay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Dimitre Novatchev
> Sent: 12 January 2003 09:53
> To: xsl-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject:  Outputting a number in "scientific notation" 
> -- is this XSLT compliant?
> 
> 
> This transformation:
> 
> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"   
>  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
> 
>  <xsl:template match="/">
>    <xsl:variable name="vNum" select="0.0000000155"/>
>   
>    <xsl:value-of select="$vNum"/>
>  </xsl:template>
> </xsl:stylesheet>
> 
> when performed by a specific xslt processor produces:
> 
> 1.55E-08
> 
> 
> 1. Is this a bug? This seems difficult to answer from the 
> specs of XSLT
> 
>    1.0 and XPath 1.0
> 
> Mike Kay says in his book that:
> 
> "Unlike most other programming languages, XPath does not use 
> scientific notation for floating point numbers, either on 
> input or on output. I f you want to enter the number one 
> trilion, you must write 1000000000000, not 1.0E12. The only 
> exception is that scientific notation is available when you 
> output a number using the format-number() function ..."
> 
> 2. Another minor question here is that no xml declaration is produced
> --
>    is this also a bug?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> =====
> Cheers,
> 
> Dimitre Novatchev.
> http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL
> 
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