On Thu, 20 Apr 2006, Doug Tody wrote:
> Of course, if a client application which uses VOTable (or FITS, etc.)
> wants to be clever and relax the stanndard a bit such as Mark describes,
> that is ok, but this issue should not be confused with what the standard
> specifies. (Given string input a good lexical analyzer can deal with
> a range of numerical formats of course).
The lexical analysis is not the problem, it's knowing what lexical analysis you have to do - there is not a straightforward algorithm for the mapping "string -> number" but there is for the mapping "string-which-is-in-iso8601-format -> number". All I'm proposing is a way of inserting hints about this.
-- Mark Taylor Astronomical Programmer Physics, Bristol University, UK m.b.taylor@bris.ac.uk +44-117-928-8776 http://www.star.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/Received on 2006-04-21Z11:14:32