Decimal comma!

BobJones

Expert Member
Joined
May 29, 2006
Messages
1,508
Reaction score
0
Has anyone else noticed a change in the International settings for South Africa in 10.6.1 and 3.1.1?
When you select South Africa as the region for formats in Snow Leopard and iPhoneOS you get decimals represented by a comma.
As a result calculator and other numerically aware applications use the comma instead of the decimal point. Very irritating.

In Snow Leopard you can customize the settings, but in iPhone OS I'm stuck. I can work around by selecting Botswana (I refuse to use Zimbabwe) for regional settings. Now the decimal is used correctly, but currency prefix is Pula.

Anyone know how I can get iPhoneOS to use decimal point instead of comma?
 
They have watched too much of the SABC learning channel. They also use decimal commas.
 
System Preferences
Language & Text
Formats
Customise Numbers
Change Number Separators + Currency Separators from , to .

No luck on iphone, except Zimbabwe or bug fix
 
Last edited:
Yeah, Snow Leopard is under control using the customization menu, but iPhone OS is not.
Tried Brazil and India but the Currency symbols have suffixes to distinguish them from R. Any other suggestions?
 
Custom fields would be handy - my week begins on a Sunday.
 
If you remember back to primary school the correct way of using a decimal is with a comma its a South African standard, although i will rather use the decimal point as well.

One of my professors at varsity also insisted on using a comma as a decimal, but I agree the decimal point is more internationaly accepted.
 
Last edited:
Custom fields would be handy - my week begins on a Sunday.
The start of the week can be set in Language and Text\Formats and in iCal General Preferences. At least it can in Snow Leopard.
 
If you remember back to primary school the correct way of using a decimal is with a comma its a South African standard, although i will rather use the decimal point as well.

One of my professors at varsity also insisted on using a comma as a decimal, but I agree the decimal point is more internationaly accepted.
Crap! This means that there is less chance that the setting will be changed. It's listed in Wikipedia - so it must be true.
 
The start of the week can be set in Language and Text\Formats and in iCal General Preferences. At least it can in Snow Leopard.
yes, its all customizable on snow leopard but on the iphone its determined by the region setting.
 
And here I am getting all caught up in my own problem - which is the same in principle. Can't customize most regional settings in iPhoneOS.

I just checked and in 10.5 Server the SA regional setting is for a decimal point. Looks to me that this is something that was changed in 10.6 and iPhone 3.1. Can anyone confirm? And fix? Plist setting maybe?
 
It's not just Apple.

<rant>Open Office has this problem as well, and there it's more than just an annoying quirk, it makes the spreadsheet unusable (It won't let you choose "." over "," as a decimal point, or " " over "." for the thousands separator). ****ing standard authorities, if I want to use δ as a decimal point, and ╩ as a thousands seperator, I ****ing will, and if your software doesn't let me then I'll find software that does. </end rant>
 
Sorry to disappoint you, but in Snow Leopard, Numbers can work around the problem, not to the extent you want, but workable.
Numbers has the best handling of currency formats I've come across. In anything. Ever. That I remember right now.;)
 
Like I say, I can't use any software that doesn't allow me to change these characters. In an iPhone it's not a deal breaker, but the the OOo problem sent me back to Excel. If I bought a Apple and found that these characters were fixed, I'd have to return the machine, and I sure I'm not the only one.
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X