Re: Difficulties with Flat XML under source control

On 21/06/12 14:07, Stephan Bergmann wrote:
> On 06/20/2012 03:07 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton wrote:
> > I think it is necessary to look at round-trip out-in conversion preservation.
> >
> > For out-in (which this is, presumably), you want to record a decimal expression of the internal 
> > value that will convert back to the exact internal value on re-input.  (The in-out case is that 
> > the input conversion provide whatever internal representation that will convert to the read 
> > value on re-output.  Without additional information, it is generally very difficult to have 
> > these be the same.)
> >
> > It is also desirable, of course, that any other ODF consumer use the same technique so that its 
> > in-out conversion satisfies the out-in condition of the original source of the decimal 
> > expression of the value.
> >
> > There are old technical papers on how to have this work.  The name David Matula comes to mind.
> >
> > There might be solutions in the conversions that exist in the basic Java classes for float data 
> > types.  I think this was addressed in Common Lisp also.
>
> Hasn't there been progress in that field recently?  Wait, yes, 
> <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1806623> "Printing floating-point 
> numbers quickly and accurately with integers" by Florian Loitsch.

i am in awe that it's possible to get a paper on this topic published in
this day and age; one would think this kind of problem would have been
solved 30 years ago, and the developers of popular office suites were
just ignorant of the solutions :)