On Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 7:21:29 PM UTC+5:30, Grant Edwards wrote: > On 2015-07-22, Ben Finney wrote: > > Laura Creighton writes: > > > >> The biggest use I have for decimal numbers that begin with 0 is in > >> credit card numbers, account numbers and the like where the first > >> check you do is 'does this thing have the correct number of digits'. > > > > The following are examples of types from the real world that people > > think of, and casually discuss, as "numbers". > > > > * Postal code > > * Credit card number > > * Telephone number > > * Car registration plate number > > * Personal Identification Number (PIN) > > Those are all strings. Not numbers.
Cobol would represent these well (if I remember rightly) as PIC 9(n) USAGE DISPLAY The USAGE DISPLAY was the default and unnecessary to state explicitly whereas the alternative USAGE COMP(UTATIONAL) corresponds to what most post-COBOL programmers think of as (binary) numbers. [Just sayin'... NOT asking for python to have 'usage display' ints] -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
