Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!rpp386!jfh
From: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: Is this how formats are supposed to work?
Summary: How about this ...
Message-ID: <17678@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: 17 Jan 90 05:57:55 GMT
References: <1990Jan15.185922.20098@eci386.uucp> <6798@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II)
Organization: Lone Star Cafe and BBS Service
Lines: 44

In article <6798@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
I-In article <1990Jan15.185922.20098@eci386.uucp> clewis@eci386 (Chris Lewis) writes:
n-: Is there any way to set the display format for numbers in format lines?
e-
w-No.
s-
--: Assigning "%.2g" to $# (after selecting the handling associated with the
n-: stream) doesn't appear to affect anything and things are printed with
o-: more than 2 decimal places.
i-
s-Maybe it should work this way--I haven't thought about it.  Or maybe we
e-need numeric "pictures".

Perhaps a function "picture" that takes two arguments - the first a
number, either floating point or integer, and a picture string.  The
function formats the number according to the picture string.

[ Anyone familiar with INFORMIX[tm] RDBMS can quit now ... ]

The format characters would be

	< - left justify numeric
	# - blank-fill numeric
	& - zero-fill numeric
	* - star-fill numeric [ for bank drafts, etc ]
	, - literal comma, unless a space is to the left
	. - literal decimal point
	$ - dollar sign in first blank left of number
	() - show sign ala accounting statements
	- - [ minus sign ] blank for positive, '-' for negative
	+ - '+' for positive, '-' for negative

The values and pictures below would give the following results -

	    value        "$<,<<&.##"   "#,###.##"  "*,***.##"  "&&&&"
	     0.01     -> "$0.01"       "     .01"  "*****.01"  "0000"
	     0.12     -> "$0.12"       "     .12"  "*****.12"  "0000"
	     1.23     -> "$1.23"       "    1.23"  "****1.23"  "0001"
	    12.34     -> "$12.34"      "   12.34"  "***12.34"  "0012"
	   123.45     -> "$123.45"     "  123.45"  "**123.45"  "0123"
	  1234.56     -> "$1,234.56"   "1,234.56"  "1,234.56"  "1234"
-- 
John F. Haugh II                             UUCP: ...!cs.utexas.edu!rpp386!jfh
Ma Bell: (512) 832-8832                           Domain: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org