Numbers and locales (e.g. 0,5 vs 0.5) in VStar

Affiliation
Astronomical Society of South Australia (ASSAU)
Sun, 07/20/2014 - 22:27

In this comment:

  http://www.aavso.org/cannot-connect-database-error#comment-10437

an unexpected numeric localisation issue was reported in which VStar showed a period in a user interface dialog as 0,0594 rather than 0.0594.

VStar is showing a comma because it (well, Java) has determined that the locale of the system on which it is running is not English.

To make sure I understand the problem, Velimir are you saying that although VStar shows commas in the phase plot dialog, it doesn't generate a correct phase plot if you click OK?

Do others, especially anyone in the locale Velimir has set, see this problem?

Is the locale of the system in question set to something other than English? If so, and if other tools don't show this, it may be because they don't look at the locale set by the user.

More generally...

My experience from talking with VStar users is that this is all complicated by the fact that some people in non-English (by default) locales actually don't want to see anything other than decimal places, while others do. For example, I have had conversations with two people from the same country, one of whom wants the locale to be respected, while the other doesn't, so it's hard to know. frown I suppose I could add an option to ignore this or just turn it off completely. Most observation sources use decimal places also.

Thanks.

David

 

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Numbers and locales

Hi David,

Thank you for your efforts to understand and solve the problem. I will try to help you and to be clearer.

1. I am using WINDOWS 8
2. The Regional settings are set to Bulgaria but I use English – United States as a primary language.
3. The decimal setting is: Point (see the attached image: 01 - numbers settings.jpg)

The situation I will explain with an example: Lets load a data for a known star as eta Aql (the same as in VStar manual, pages 46-47) Let use the function “Analysis / Phase Plot” VStar:

4. VStar opens a small pop up window and offers known from the VSX Period and Epoch for eta Aql with comma as a decimal symbol: 7,176641000 and 2436084,656000000 (in preferences I set the numeric precision to 9 digits)

5. When I click OK it generate incorrect phase plot as it looks in the next attached image: 02-comma as a decimal symbol.jpg. The written Period is 7176641000.000000000 instead of 7,176641000 and the Epoch is 2436084656000000,000000000 instead of 2436084,656000000

6. If I manually change the decimal commas to decimal points in offered Period and Epoch everything is going well. The Phase plot is correct and the written numbers in the title of the Period and the Epoch are correct although again written with commas. The written Period is 7,176641000 instead of 7.176641000 and the Epoch is 2436084,656000000 instead of 2436084.656000000 but the graph is correct. (see the image: 03-point as a decimal symbol.jpg)

I do not care whether the locale will be respected. Anyhow I have always used the English interfaces of the installed software and I think that it will be better to leave users to decide what to use. I suppose that sometimes Windows itself mismatches the numeric settings in the case of bilingual or more lingual usage.

For the moment this is all that I can submit as additional information about the decimal comma/point problem with the Phase Plot.

Velimir (PVEA)

Affiliation
Astronomical Society of South Australia (ASSAU)
Thanks for the detailed

Thanks for the detailed explanation Velimir.

I'll put together some test locale test code that I might ask you to run for me so we can diagnose what's going on. Stay tuned. smiley

David

Affiliation
American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)
Correct display in Spanish

I am using the Spanish settings on my system so I get commas too but I have no problem with the phase plots or any result. Commas are displayed instead of points as it should be but that's it.

Cheers,
Sebastian