[pilot-db-list] decimal places vs. significant places

[<hol...@di...>]

Dear Scott,

(Please answer to aji...@t-...)

You just convinced me that significant values shoud be used 
instead of decimal values in the case you mentioned:

> .00004, will just show up as zeros.  
> Maybe that's ok, I don't know.  

I don't think that is O.K.

Lets say you want to enter 0.0000012345

If you choose 2 significant values it should display
0.0000012

If you choose 2 decimal places it will display 
0.00 which, I do not believe is appropriate.

One could consider choosing the exponential display
if the no of digits requied to display a value would be
say 2 more than that of the decimal display.

take the above example again. 2 significant values are chosen
in the global settings:

the value entered is 0.0000012345

the values that could be displayed are 

0.0000012   which requires 9 digits to display
 or
1.21e-6     which requires 7 digits to display

Since the decimal diplay need >= 2 digits more than
that of the exponential display, we choose the
exponential display in this case.

This could be chosen as the standard rule, however one could
consider in addition to have a setting forcing either a 
decimal or exponential display.

These are just a few thougts...

Hans



To: swa...@my...
    pil...@li...