Re: "set decimalsign" for thousand separator

[Ethan A M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Friday 14 July 2006 05:15 pm, you wrote:
> 
> Do you want to say that the thousand separator is automatically placed
> under linux if you set the proper locale?

Yes. The separator is taken from the table controlled by
LC_NUMERIC.

To be explicit:

"set decimal locale" causes gnuplot to issue a command
	setlocale(LC_NUMERIC,"");
This has the effect of changing the C library routines
*printf() and *scanf() to format numbers using the conventions
of the current locale.

"set decimal locale 'sl_SI.UTF-8'"  does the same except
that it uses the conventions of sl_SI.UTF-8 whether or not
that is the current locale.

What you are calling a "thousand separator" is invoked by
the C format character '

I downloaded the Slovenian locale set for testing, and here is what I see:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
gnuplot> set decimal locale
decimal_sign in locale is .
gnuplot> show locale

        LC_CTYPE is en_US.UTF-8
        LC_TIME is C
        LC_NUMERIC is en_US.UTF-8

gnuplot> set label 1 sprintf("%'.3f", 12345678.7654321)
gnuplot> show label 1

        label 1 "12,345,678.765" at (0, 0, 0) left not rotated back  nopoint

gnuplot> set decimal locale 'sl_SI.UTF-8'
decimal_sign in locale is ,
gnuplot> show locale

        LC_CTYPE is en_US.UTF-8
        LC_TIME is C
        LC_NUMERIC is sl_SI.UTF-8

gnuplot> set label 1 sprintf("%'.3f", 12345678.7654321)
gnuplot> show label 1

        label 1 "12345678,765" at (0, 0, 0) left not rotated back  nopoint

gnuplot> set decimal locale 'de_LU.UTF-8'
decimal_sign in locale is ,
gnuplot> show locale

        LC_CTYPE is en_US.UTF-8
        LC_TIME is C
        LC_NUMERIC is de_LU.UTF-8

gnuplot> set label 1 sprintf("%'.3f", 12345678.7654321)
gnuplot> show label 1

        label 1 "12.345.678,765" at (0, 0, 0) left not rotated back  nopoint
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Conclusions:
1)  set decimal locale "xx_YY.UTF-8"  works fine
2)  locale "en_US.UTF-8" has a thousands' grouping character: comma
3)  locale "de_LU.UTF-8" has a thousands' grouping character: dot
4)  locale "sl_SI.UTF-8" does not have a thousands' grouping character.


So I think your problem goes a little beyond the scope of gnuplot.
If you believe that the sl_SI.UTF-8 locale should contain a 
grouping character, <period> or anything else, I think you will have
to take it up with the approriate standards committee.

There is more information here:
 http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/basedefs/xbd_chap07.html#tag_07_03


-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742