Numerical symbol
"Decimal period" redirects here. For the period of a repeating decimal fraction, see
Repeating decimal
.
A
decimal separator
is a symbol used to separate the
integer
part from the
fractional part
of a
number
written in
decimal
form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choice of symbol also affects the choice of symbol for the
thousands separator
used in digit grouping.
Any such symbol can be called a
decimal mark
,
decimal marker
, or
decimal sign
. Symbol-specific names are also used;
decimal point
and
decimal comma
refer to a dot (either
baseline
or
middle
) and
comma
respectively, when it is used as a decimal separator; these are the usual terms used in English,
[1]
[2]
[3]
with the aforementioned generic terms reserved for abstract usage.
[4]
[5]
In many contexts, when a number is spoken, the function of the separator is assumed by the spoken name of the symbol:
comma
or
point
in most cases.
[6]
[2]
[7]
In some specialized contexts, the word
decimal
is instead used for this purpose (such as in
International Civil Aviation Organization
-regulated
air traffic control
communications). In mathematics, the decimal separator is a type of
radix point
, a term that also applies to number systems with bases other than ten.
History
[
edit
]
Hellenistic?Renaissance eras
[
edit
]
In the
Middle Ages
, before printing, a
bar
( ? ) over the
units digit
was used to separate the integral part of a number from its
fractional part
, as in 9
9
95 (meaning 99.95 in
decimal
point format). A similar notation remains in common use as an underbar to superscript digits, especially for monetary values without a decimal separator, as in 99
95
. Later, a "separatrix" (i.e., a short, roughly vertical ink stroke) between the units and tenths position became the norm among
Arab mathematicians
(e.g. 99
?
95), while an L-shaped or
vertical bar
(|) served as the separatrix in England.
[8]
When this character was
typeset
, it was convenient to use the existing
comma
(99
,
95) or
full stop
(99
.
95) instead.
Positional
decimal fractions
appear for the first time in a book by the Arab mathematician
Abu'l-Hasan al-Uqlidisi
written in the 10th century.
[9]
The practice is ultimately derived from the decimal
Hindu?Arabic numeral system
used in
Indian mathematics
,
[10]
and popularized by the
Persian
mathematician
Al-Khwarizmi
,
[11]
when
Latin
translation of
his work
on the
Indian numerals
introduced the decimal
positional number system
to the Western world. His
Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing
presented the first systematic solution of
linear
and
quadratic equations
in Arabic.
Gerbert of Aurillac
marked triples of columns with an arc (called a "Pythagorean arc"), when using his Hindu?Arabic numeral-based abacus in the 10th century.
Fibonacci
followed this convention when writing numbers, such as in his influential work
Liber Abaci
in the 13th century.
[12]
The earliest known record of using the decimal point is in the astronomical tables compiled by the Italian merchant and mathematician
Giovanni Bianchini
in the 1440s.
[13]
Tables of
logarithms
prepared by
John Napier
in 1614 and 1619 used the period (full stop) as the decimal separator, which was then adopted by
Henry Briggs
in his influential 17th century work.
In
France
, the full stop was already in use in printing to make
Roman numerals
more readable, so the comma was chosen.
[14]
Many other countries, such as Italy, also chose to use the comma to mark the decimal units position.
[14]
It has been
made standard
by the
ISO
for international blueprints.
[15]
However, English-speaking countries took the comma to separate sequences of three digits. In some countries, a raised dot or dash (
upper comma
) may be used for grouping or decimal separator; this is particularly common in handwriting.
English-speaking countries
[
edit
]
In the
United States
, the full stop or period (.) is used as the standard decimal separator.
In the nations of the
British Empire
(and, later, the
Commonwealth of Nations
), the full stop could be used in typewritten material and its use was not banned, although the
interpunct
(a.k.a. decimal point, point or mid dot) was preferred as a decimal separator, in printing technologies that could accommodate it, e.g.
99·95 .
[17]
However, as the mid dot was already in common use in the mathematics world to indicate multiplication, the
SI
rejected its use as the decimal separator.
During the beginning of British
metrication
in the late 1960s and with impending currency
decimalisation
, there was some debate in the United Kingdom as to whether the decimal comma or decimal point should be preferred: the
British Standards Institution
and some sectors of industry advocated the comma and the
Decimal Currency Board
advocated for the point. In the event, the point was chosen by the
Ministry of Technology
in 1968.
[18]
When South Africa
adopted the metric system
, it adopted the comma as its decimal separator,
[19]
although a number of house styles, including some English-language newspapers such as
The Sunday Times
, continue to use the full stop.
[
citation needed
]
Previously, signs along
California
roads expressed distances in decimal numbers with the decimal part in superscript, as in 3
7
, meaning 3.7 .
[20]
Though California has since transitioned to
mixed numbers
with
common fractions
, the older style remains on
postmile
markers and bridge inventory markers.
Constructed languages
[
edit
]
The three most spoken
international auxiliary languages
,
Ido
,
Esperanto
, and
Interlingua
, all use the comma as the decimal separator.
Interlingua has used the comma as its decimal separator since the publication of the
Interlingua Grammar
in 1951.
[21]
Esperanto also uses the comma as its official decimal separator, while thousands are usually separated by
non-breaking spaces
(e.g.
12 345 678,9
). It is possible to separate thousands by a
full stop
(e.g.
12.345.678,9
), though this is not as common.
[22]
Ido's
Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza di la Linguo Internaciona Ido
(Complete Detailed Grammar of the International Language Ido) officially states that commas are used for the decimal separator while full stops are used to separate thousands, millions, etc. So the number 12,345,678.90123 (in American notation) for instance, would be written
12.345.678,90123
in Ido.
The 1931 grammar of
Volapuk
uses the comma as its decimal separator, and ? somewhat unusually ? uses the middle dot as the thousands separator (12·345·678,90123).
[23]
In 1958, disputes between European and American delegates over the correct representation of the decimal separator nearly stalled the development of the
ALGOL
computer programming language.
[24]
ALGOL ended up allowing different decimal separators, but most computer languages and standard data formats (e.g.,
C
,
Java
,
Fortran
,
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
) specify a dot. C and a couple of others permit a quote (') as thousands separator.
Radix point
[
edit
]
In
mathematics
and
computing
, a
radix point
or
radix character
is a symbol used in the display of numbers to separate the
integer
part of the value from its
fractional part
. In
English
and many other languages (including many that are written right-to-left), the integer part is at the left of the radix point, and the fraction part at the right of it.
[25]
A radix point is most often used in
decimal
(base 10) notation, when it is more commonly called the
decimal point
(the prefix
deci-
implying
base 10
). In
English-speaking countries
, the decimal point is usually a small dot (.) placed either on the baseline, or halfway between the baseline and the top of the
digits
(
·
)
[26]
[a]
In many other countries, the radix point is a comma (,) placed on the baseline.
[26]
[a]
These conventions are generally used both in machine displays (
printing
,
computer monitors
) and in
handwriting
. It is important to know which notation is being used when working in different software programs. The respective
ISO standard
defines both the comma and the small dot as decimal markers, but does not explicitly define universal radix marks for bases other than 10.
Fractional numbers are rarely displayed in other
number bases
, but, when they are, a radix character may be used for the same purpose. When used with the
binary
(
base 2
) representation, it may be called "binary point".
Current standards
[
edit
]
The 22nd
General Conference on Weights and Measures
[27]
declared in 2003 that "the symbol for the decimal marker shall be either the point on the line or the comma on the line". It further reaffirmed that
- "numbers may be divided in groups of three in order to facilitate reading; neither dots nor commas are ever inserted in the spaces between groups"
[27]
(
1 000 000 000
for example).
[27]
This use has therefore been recommended by technical organizations, such as the United States'
National Institute of Standards and Technology
.
[28]
Past versions of
ISO 8601
, but not the 2019 revision, also stipulated normative notation based on SI conventions, adding that the comma is preferred over the full stop.
[29]
ISO 80000-1
stipulates that "The decimal sign is either a comma or a point on the line." The standard does not stipulate any preference, observing that usage will depend on customary usage in the language concerned, but adds a note that as per ISO/IEC directives, all ISO standards should use the comma as the decimal marker.
Digit grouping
[
edit
]
For ease of reading, numbers with many digits may be divided into groups using a
delimiter
,
[30]
such as comma "," or dot ".", half-space (or
thin space
)
" ",
space
" "
, underscore "_" (as in maritime "21_450") or apostrophe ≪'≫. In some countries, these "digit group separators" are only employed to the left of the decimal separator; in others, they are also used to separate numbers with a long
fractional part
. An important reason for grouping is that it allows rapid judgement of the number of digits, via telling at a glance ("
subitizing
") rather than counting (contrast, for example,
100 000 000
with 100000000 for one hundred million).
The use of
thin spaces
as separators,
[31]
: 133
not dots or commas (for example:
20 000
and
1 000 000
for "twenty thousand" and "one million"), has been official policy of the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
since 1948 (and reaffirmed in 2003) stating
- "neither dots nor commas are ever inserted in the spaces between groups",
[27]
as well as of the
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
(IUPAC),
[32]
[33]
the
American Medical Association
's widely followed
AMA Manual of Style
, and the
Metrication Board
, among others.
The groups created by the delimiters tend to follow the use of the local language, which varies. In European languages, large numbers are read in groups of thousands, and the delimiter ? which occurs every three digits when it is used ? may be called a "thousands separator". In
East Asian cultures
, particularly
China
,
Japan
, and
Korea
, large numbers are read in groups of
myriads
(10 000s) but the delimiter commonly separates every three digits.
[
citation needed
]
The
Indian numbering system
is somewhat more complex: It groups the rightmost three digits together (until the hundreds place) and thereafter groups by sets of two digits. For example, one
American trillion
(European
billion
) would thus be written as 10,00,00,00,00,000 or 10
kharab
.
[34]
The convention for digit group separators historically varied among countries, but usually seeking to distinguish the delimiter from the decimal separator. Traditionally,
English-speaking countries
(except South Africa)
[35]
employed commas as the delimiter ? 10,000 ? and other European countries employed periods or spaces: 10.000 or
10 000
. Because of the confusion that could result in international documents, in recent years the use of spaces as separators has been advocated by the superseded
SI/ISO 31-0 standard
,
[36]
as well as by the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
and the
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
, which have also begun advocating the use of a "
thin space
" in "groups of three".
[32]
[33]
Within the United States, the
American Medical Association
's widely followed
AMA Manual of Style
also calls for a thin space.
[30]
In programming languages and online
encoding
environments (for example,
ASCII
-only) a thin space is not practical or available, in which case an underscore,
[37]
regular word space, or no delimiter are the alternatives.
Data versus mask
[
edit
]
Digit group separators can occur either as part of the data or as a mask through which the data is displayed. This is an example of the
separation of presentation and content
, making it possible to display numbers with spaced digit grouping in a way that does not insert any
whitespace characters
into the string of digits in the
content
. In many computing contexts, it is preferred to omit digit group separators from the data and instead overlay them as a mask (an
input mask
or an output mask).
Common examples include
spreadsheets
and
databases
in which currency values are entered without such marks but are displayed with them inserted. (Similarly, phone numbers can have hyphens, spaces or parentheses as a mask rather than as data.) In
web content
, such digit grouping can be done with
CSS style
. It is useful because the number can be
copied and pasted
into
calculators
(including a web browser's
omnibox
) and parsed by the computer as-is (i.e., without the user manually purging the extraneous characters). For example,
Wikipedia
content can display numbers this way, as in the following examples:
- 149
597
870
700
metres is 1
astronomical unit
- 3.14159
26535
89793
23846
is
π
rounded to 20 decimal places
- 2.71828
18284
59045
23536
is
e
rounded to 20 decimal places.
In some
programming languages
, it is possible to group the digits in the program's
source code
to make it easier to read; see
Integer literal: Digit separators
.
Julia
,
Swift
,
Java
, and free-form
Fortran 90
use the
underscore (_)
character for this purpose; as such, these languages allow seven hundred million to be entered as 700_000_000.
Fixed-form
Fortran
ignores
whitespace
(in all contexts), so 700 000 000 has always been accepted.
Fortran 90
and its successors allow (ignored) underscores in numbers in free-form.
C++14
,
Rebol
, and
Red
all allow the use of an
apostrophe
for digit grouping, so 700'000'000 is permissible.
Below is shown an example of Kotlin code using separators to increase readability:
val
exampleNumber
=
12
_004_953
// Twelve million four thousand nine hundred fifty-three
Exceptions to digit grouping
[
edit
]
The
International Bureau of Weights and Measures
states that "when there are only four digits before or after the decimal marker, it is customary not to use a space to isolate a single digit".
[32]
Likewise, some
manuals of style
state that thousands separators should not be used in normal text for numbers from
1000
to
9999
inclusive where no decimal fractional part is shown (in other words, for four-digit whole numbers), whereas others use thousands separators and others use both. For example,
APA style
stipulates a thousands separator for "most figures of
1000
or more" except for page numbers, binary digits, temperatures, etc.
There are always "common-sense" country-specific exceptions to digit grouping, such as year numbers,
postal codes
, and ID numbers of predefined nongrouped format, which style guides usually point out.
In non-base-10 numbering systems
[
edit
]
In binary (base-2), a full space can be used between groups of four digits, corresponding to a
nibble
, or equivalently to a
hexadecimal
digit. For integer numbers, dots are used as well to separate groups of four bits.
[b]
Alternatively, binary digits may be grouped by threes, corresponding to an
octal
digit. Similarly, in hexadecimal (base-16), full spaces are usually used to group digits into twos, making each group correspond to a
byte
.
[c]
Additionally, groups of eight bytes are often separated by a hyphen.
[c]
Influence of calculators and computers
[
edit
]
In countries with a decimal comma, the decimal point is also common as the "international" notation
[
citation needed
]
because of the influence of devices, such as
electronic calculators
, which use the decimal point. Most computer
operating systems
allow selection of the decimal separator; programs that have been carefully
internationalized
will follow this, but some programs ignore it and a few may even fail to operate if the setting has been changed.
Computer interfaces may be set to the Unicode international "Common locale" using
LC_NUMERIC=C
as defined at
"Unicode CLDR project"
.
Unicode Consortium
.
Details of the current (2020) definitions may be found at
"01102-POSIX15897"
.
Unicode Consortium
.
Conventions worldwide
[
edit
]
Hindu?Arabic numerals
[
edit
]
Countries using decimal comma
[
edit
]
Countries where a comma "," is used as decimal separator include:
- Albania
- Algeria
- Andorra
- Angola
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Austria
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Belgium
- Bolivia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
[i]
- Cabo Verde
- Cameroon
- Canada (when using French)
- Chile
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Croatia
- Cuba
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- East Timor
- Ecuador
- Estonia
- Faroes
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Georgia
- Greece
- Greenland
- Hungary
- Iceland
- Indonesia
- Italy
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg (uses both marks officially
[
citation needed
]
)
- Macau (in Portuguese text)
- Mauritania
- Moldova
- Mongolia
[ii]
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Namibia (uses both marks)
[41]
- The Netherlands
- North Macedonia
- Norway
- Paraguay
- Peru
[42]
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- San Marino
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Somalia
- South Africa
[43]
[44]
- Spain
[iii]
- Suriname
- Sweden
[iii]
- Switzerland
[iv]
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Ukraine
- Uruguay
- Uzbekistan
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
- Zimbabwe
Countries using decimal point
[
edit
]
Countries where a dot "." is used as decimal separator include:
- Australia
- Bahamas, The
- Bangladesh
- Botswana
- British West Indies
- Cambodia
- Canada (when using English)
- China
- Cyprus (currency numbers)
- Dominican Republic
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Ethiopia
- Ghana
- Guatemala
- Guyana
- Honduras
- Hong Kong
- India
- Ireland
- Israel
- Jamaica
- Japan
- Jordan
- Kenya
- Korea, North
- Korea, South
- Libya
- Liechtenstein
- Luxembourg (uses both marks officially)
[
citation needed
]
- Macau (in Chinese and English text)
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Malta
- Mexico
- Myanmar
- Namibia (uses both marks)
- Nepal
- New Zealand
- Nicaragua
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- Panama
- Peru (currency numbers)
- Philippines
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- Somalia
- Sri Lanka
- Switzerland
[iv]
- Syria
- Taiwan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
[iii]
- Uganda
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- United States (including
insular areas
)
- ^
The comma as a decimal separator is the national literary convention, but many places use the dot as decimal separator due to prevalence of imported tech that internally uses dot as the decimal separator (because the tech usually utilizes the dot decimal separator convention of the country where it was made, which is mostly USA-&-
ASCII
-oriented, or is made in China where the dot is utilized as a decimal separator). To sum up, the comma is the conventional decimal separator in Bulgaria, but both the comma and the dot are in
de facto
usage.
- ^
The comma as a decimal separator is the national literary convention, but many places use the dot as decimal separator due to prevalence of imported tech that internally uses dot as the decimal separator (because the tech usually utilizes the dot decimal separator convention of the country where it was made, which is mostly USA-&-
ASCII
-oriented, or is made in China where the dot is utilized as a decimal separator). To sum up, the comma is the conventional decimal separator in Mongolia, but the dot is more commonly used.
- ^
a
b
c
According to several software developers.
[47]
[48]
- ^
a
b
The decimal point is used in some
cantons
(for example the
Canton of St. Gallen
[45]
) and is used in
IT
and for
currency
. The decimal comma is used for federal publications
[46]
and some
cantons
.
Other numeral systems
[
edit
]
Unicode defines a
decimal separator key symbol
(? in hex U+2396, decimal 9110) which looks similar to the
apostrophe
. This symbol is from
ISO/IEC 9995
and is intended for use on a keyboard to indicate a key that performs decimal separation.
In the
Arab world
, where
Eastern Arabic numerals
are used for writing numbers, a different character is used to separate the integer and fractional parts of numbers. It is referred to as an
Arabic decimal separator
(U+066B, rendered:
?
) in
Unicode
. An Arabic thousands separator (U+066C, rendered:
?
) also exists. Example:
????????
(9,999.99)
In
Persian
, the decimal separator is called
momayyez
. The Unicode Consortium's investigation concluded that "computer programs should render U+066B as a shortened, lowered, and possibly more slanted
slash
(
?
); this should be distinguishable from the slash at the first sight." To separate
sequences
of three digits, an Arabic thousands separator (rendered as:
?
), a Latin comma, or a
blank space
may be used; however this is not a standard.
[49]
[50]
[51]
Example:
????????
(9,999.99)
In
English Braille
, the decimal point,
?
, is distinct from both the comma,
?
, and the full stop,
?
.
Examples of use
[
edit
]
The following examples show the decimal separator and the thousands separator in various countries that use the Arabic numeral system.
Style
|
Countries and regions
|
1
,
234
,
567
.
89
|
Australia,
[52]
[53]
Cambodia, Canada (English-speaking; unofficial), China,
[54]
Cyprus (currency numbers), Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Macau (in Chinese and English text), Malaysia, Mexico, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru (currency numbers), Philippines, Singapore, South Africa (English-speaking; unofficial), Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom and other Commonwealth states except Mozambique, United States.
|
1
234
567
.
89
|
Canada (English-speaking; official), China,
[55]
Estonia (currency numbers), Hong Kong (in education), Mexico, Namibia, South Africa (English-speaking; unofficial), Sri Lanka, Switzerland (in federal texts for currency numbers only
[56]
), United Kingdom (in education), United States (in education). SI style (English version) but SI doesn't include currency.
|
1
234
567
,
89
|
Albania, Belgium (French), Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (French-speaking), Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy (in education), Latin America, Latin Europe, Latvia, Lithuania, Macau (in Portuguese text), Mozambique, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia (informal), Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa (official
[57]
), Spain (official use since 2010, according to the
RAE
and
CSIC
), Sweden, Switzerland (in federal texts, except currency numbers
[56]
), Ukraine, Vietnam (in education). SI style (French version) but SI doesn't include currency.
|
1
.
234
.
567
,
89
|
Austria, Belgium (Dutch), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil (informal and in
technology
), Chile, Colombia, Croatia (in
bookkeeping
and technology),
[58]
Denmark, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Latin America (informal), Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, Spain (used until 2010, inadvisable use according to the
RAE
and
CSIC
),
[d]
[60]
Turkey, Uruguay, Vietnam.
|
1
,
234
,
567
·
89
|
Malaysia, Malta, Philippines (uncommon today), Singapore, Taiwan, United Kingdom (older, typically handwritten; in education)
|
12
,
34
,
567
.
89
|
Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan (see
Indian numbering system
).
|
12
34
567
.
89
|
Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan (see
Indian numbering system
).
|
1
'
234
'
567
.
89
|
Switzerland (computing), Liechtenstein.
|
1
'
234
'
567
,
89
|
Switzerland (handwriting), Italy (handwriting).
|
1
.
234
.
567
'
89
|
Spain (handwriting, used until 1980s, inadvisable use according to the
RAE
and
CSIC
).
|
- In Albania, Belgium (French), Estonia, Finland,
[61]
France, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and much of
Latin Europe
as well as French Canada:
1
234
567
,
89
(In Spain, in handwriting it is also common to use an upper comma: 1
.
234
.
567
'
89)
[
citation needed
]
- In Belgium (Dutch), Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden and much of Europe:
1
234
567
,
89
or 1
.
234
.
567
,
89. In
handwriting
, 1
˙
234
˙
567
,
89 is also seen, but never in Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovenia or Sweden. In Italy, a straight apostrophe is also used in handwriting: 1
'
234
'
567
,
89. In the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking Belgium, the points thousands separator is used, and is preferred for currency amounts, but the space is recommended by some style guides, mostly in technical writing.
[62]
- In Estonia, currency numbers often use a dot "
.
" as the decimal separator, and a space as a thousands separator. This is most visible on shopping receipts and in documents that also use other numbers with decimals, such as measurements. This practice is used to better distinguish between prices and other values with decimals. An older convention uses dots to separate thousands (with commas for decimals) — this older practice makes it easier to avoid word breaks with larger numbers.
- Historically, in Germany and Austria, thousands separators were occasionally denoted by alternating uses of comma and point, e.g. 1
.
234
,
567
.
890
,
12
[63]
[64]
for "eine Milliarde 234 Millionen ...", but this is never seen in modern days and requires explanation to a contemporary German reader.
- Switzerland: There are two cases: An apostrophe as a thousands separator along with a dot "
.
" as the decimal separator are used for currency values (for example: 1
'
234
'
567
.
89). For other values, the
SI
-style
1
234
567
,
89
is used with a comma "
,
" as the decimal separator. The apostrophe is also the most common variety for non-currency values: 1
'
234
'
567
,
89 —.
- In Ireland, Israel, Japan,
Korea
(both), Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States: 1,234,567
.
89 or 1,234,567
·
89; the latter is generally found only in older, and especially
handwritten
documents.
- English Canada: There are two cases: The preferred method for currency values is $10
,
000
.
00 —while for numeric values, it is
1
234
567
.
89
; however, commas are also sometimes used, although no longer taught in school or used in official publications.
[
citation needed
]
- SI
style:
1
234
567
.
89
or
1
234
567
,
89
(in their own publications, the dot "
.
" is used in the English version, and the comma "
,
" in the official French version).
- In China, comma and space are used to mark digit groups, because dot is used as decimal separator. There is no universal convention on digit grouping, so both thousands grouping and no digit grouping can be found. Japan and Taiwan are similar; although when grouping by myriads,
kanji
or
characters
are frequently used as separators: 1億2345万6789 / 1億2345萬6789. Commas are used when grouping by thousands.
- In
India
, due to a numeral system using
lakhs
(
lacs
) (1
,
23
,
456 equal to 123
,
456) and
crores
(1
,
23
,
45
,
678 equal to
12
,
345
,
678
), a comma is used at levels of thousand, lakh, and crore. For example, 10 million (1 crore) would be written as 1
,
00
,
00
,
000. In
Pakistan
, there is a greater tendency to use the standard western system, while using the Indian numbering system when conducting business in
Urdu
.
- In
Sweden
, the currency sometimes used the colon as decimal separator (1 234 567:89).
Indian value
|
Value
|
Equivalent western notation
|
One
|
1
|
One
|
Ten
|
10
|
Ten
|
Hundred
|
100
|
Hundred
|
Thousand
|
1
,
000
|
Thousand
|
Lakh
|
1
,
00
,
000
|
One hundred thousand
|
Crore
|
1
,
00
,
00
,
000
|
Ten million
|
Arab (not normally used)
|
1
,
00
,
00
,
00
,
000
|
One
short
billion (one thousand million)
|
Kharab (not normally used)
|
1
,
00
,
00
,
00
,
00
,
000
|
One hundred short billion
|
Lakh crore
|
10
,
00
,
00
,
00
,
00
,
000
|
One short trillion (one long (European) billion)
|
Unicode characters
[
edit
]
Used with
Western Arabic numerals
(0123456789):
- U+0020
SPACE
- U+0027
'
APOSTROPHE
(
'
)
- U+002C
,
COMMA
(
,
)
- U+002E
.
FULL STOP
(
.
) -
Full stop punctuation mark.
- U+00B7
·
MIDDLE DOT
(
·, ·, ·
)
- U+2009
THIN SPACE
(
 ,  
)
- U+202F
NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE
- U+02D9
˙
DOT ABOVE
(
˙, ˙
)
Used with
Eastern Arabic numerals
(??????????):
- U+066B
٫
ARABIC DECIMAL SEPARATOR
- U+066C
٬
ARABIC THOUSANDS SEPARATOR
Used with keyboards:
- U+2396
⎖
DECIMAL SEPARATOR KEY SYMBOL
(resembles an apostrophe)
See also
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Great Britain and the United States are two of the few places in the world that use a period to indicate the decimal place. Many other countries use a comma instead. The decimal separator is also called the
radix
character. Likewise, while the U.K. and U.S. use a comma to separate groups of thousands, many other countries use a period instead...
[26]
- ^
As an example, the
DR-DOS
DEBUG
H
command displays the entered number in hexadecimal, decimal, octal and binary notation:
-h 1234
1234 #4660 \011064 %0001.0010.0011.0100
- ^
a
b
As an example, the
DR-DOS
DEBUG
D
command dumps the memory byte-wise in hexadecimal notation, with bytes separated by spaces and groups of eight bytes separated by hyphens:
-d
0
1234
:
0000
57
69
6B
69
70
65
64
69
-
61
20
68
65
6C
70
73
21
Wikipedia helps!
- ^
... when writing numbers more than four figures, these will be grouped into threes, starting from the right, and separating the groups by whitespace. (Exceptions: Never written with periods, commas or white separation numbers that refer to years, pages, verses, urban roads, postal codes, legal articles, decrees or laws.)
[59]
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edit
]
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n.
".
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cite web
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c
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c
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cite book
}}
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