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From: rgoldstone@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU (Robin Goldstone)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Re: more 2.0 probs - number precision, file operations
Message-ID: <009407AF.3239D820@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU>
Date: 30 Nov 90 17:35:59 GMT
References: <009406E0.A248D460@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU>,<2786@ux.acs.umn.edu>
Sender: news@ecst.csuchico.edu (USENET)
Reply-To: rgoldstone@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU (Robin Goldstone)
Organization: California State University, Chico
Lines: 40

In article <2786@ux.acs.umn.edu>, clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Chaz Larson) writes:
>In article <009406E0.A248D460@OAVAX.CSUCHICO.EDU> I write:
>|1) I have a card that represents an "invoice".  The user fills in some 
>|stuff and my script calculates the total invoice amount (i.e. adds up item 
>|prices * quantities and calculates sales tax and total invoice amount). 
>|All of a sudden the user noticed that sales tax was not being computed 
>|correctly.  Our sales tax is 6.025%.  In my stack, I have:
>|  put .0625 into taxRate
>|When I debug the script, the variable watcher shows that taxRate 
>|contains .06.  Has something changed regarding default number precision?  
>|Where are my other two significant digits?!  Do I have to somehow tell HC 
>|what precision I want?
>
>Do you have a "set numberformat to 0.00" statement in there somewhere?
>
Yes, as a matter of fact I do.  I need that so that the amounts displayed
on the invoice have two significant digits.  I anaylzed this some more last
night.  When I first wrote the stack, I was under the assumption that 
numberFormat just affected the precision at which numbers were *displayed*
not the precision at which they were *calculated*.  And my assumption was
validated by the fact that this worked as I had thought. With HC 1.2.5 I had 
numberFormat set to 0.00, I put .0625 in taxRate and everything was calculated 
correctly. I swear it is true!!  I went back and double-checked some invoices
that were done under HC 1.2.5.  Sales tax was properly calculated at 6.25%.
Now it is only being calculated at 6%.  Nothing in my script has changed.
All I did was install HC 2.0 and do a "convert stack".

Looking at the HyperTalk 2.0 Reference Stack, it does seem to imply that
numberFormat affects computation of variables, not just how they are displayed.
So I feel that I misinterpreted it before.  Yet it worked... So maybe it
was HC 1.2.5 that was doing it wrong and HC 2.0 has actually fixed this.
Any comments from Apple/Claris?!

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|                                                                           |
|  Robin Goldstone, Systems Software Specialist                             |
|  California State University, Chico   Computing Services                  |
|  rgoldstone@oavax.csuchico.edu                                            |
|                                                                           |
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