Re: [pilot-db-list] leading zero bug is octal

[Harald Hanche-O. <ha...@ma...>]

+ Thomas Mueller <tw...@s2...>:

| 2. it is a "feature", that is, you can use a leading zero to enter 
| octal numbers, and a leading 0x to enter hexadecimal numbers.

That was my first thought too, but from the original message...

+ "Butler, Kevin" <Kev...@st...>:

| > When I enter a value in a numeric field that begins with zero
| > (like "0123") it either gets stored as a completely different
| > number when I save (like "52")

... I inferred (wrongly, as it turned out) that entering 0123 produced
52, so I dismissed that theory out of hand, and turned my attention
elsewhere, since this was clearly beyond my ken. Which goes to show
that it is always better to give accurate information when reporting a
bug.  But I digress... 8-)

+ Carson Wilcox <car...@ya...>:

| I don't see a problem with this actually, since it's an int field,
| not an octal field and an int is a decimal value.

Well, I feel like disagreeing here: An integer is just an integer,
there is nothing decimal about it. Decimal is a word we apply to a
specific representation of integers, which is a different thing.

The feature is clearly somewhat problematic, as it confuses users. At
the very least, it should be documented. But in any case I think it is
of very limited value as long as the result is always shown as
decimal.[1] If an option were added to display some numeric fields as
octal or hexadecimal, then perhaps this feature might be useful to
some.

[1] Reminds me of an old operating system I once worked on in which
some parameters were expected to be octal on input, and some were
expected to be decimal. Similarly, some were displayed as octal and
some as decimal, with no indication as to which was which. And here is
the killer: The input and output number bases for some paramterers
were different!.

- Harald