[Animl-develop] AnIML first last delta

[Prof. R. J. L. <rob...@uw...>]

Hi,

I have been working through some coding for reading and writing CML
documents and noticed that like JCAMP-DX they have followed the
arrangement that for auto-generated X values the approach is
provide the firstX, lastX and the number of points.
 From this deltaX is calculated.

With AnIML, firstx and deltax is provided and I wonder whether this
introduces a problem with respect to rounding errors.
When packages give deltax in an output routine they may truncate
to a set number of figures which would then lead to innaccuracies.

I suggest it would be better to give first last and number of points
so that deltaX is not truncated.

In the case of JCAMP-DX though, I must admit to having seen numerous
files where the ##FIRSTX= and ##LASTX= values were significantly
trunacted by comparison to the actual values listed in the data section
so there may be still be an issue with rounding that affects the
calculation of delta.

Any thoughts.
Excuse me if this was covered long ago!!

Robert