Bug 51008 - [PT] FORMATTING: Thousands separator should be Non-Breaking Space
Summary: [PT] FORMATTING: Thousands separator should be Non-Breaking Space
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Localization (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: Other All
: medium normal
Assignee: Eike Rathke
URL:
Whiteboard: BSA target:4.4.0
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2012-06-12 05:55 UTC by bessa.arc
Modified: 2014-11-11 13:14 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Google docs (139.07 KB, image/png)
2012-06-14 02:10 UTC, bessa.arc
Details
Python script with all relevant functions to solve this bug implemented. (4.31 KB, text/x-python)
2013-09-17 01:00 UTC, severoraz
Details

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Description bessa.arc 2012-06-12 05:55:09 UTC
Problem description: 

Steps to reproduce:
1. In Portuguese language the thousands separator used is not who is configured in the operating system.
2.  In Portuguese should be '111 111,11' (as in French) and not '111.111,11'
Comment 1 Rainer Bielefeld Retired 2012-06-12 21:49:14 UTC
I wonder where that is defined. The decimal separator is defined in Menu 'Tools -> Options -> Language'. May be it's "somehow" in a template?

At least I can say that thousands separator setting by Language in Calc dialog 'Format -> Cells -> Numbers -> Language' works, Clicking through the languages will show the different decimal and thousands separators, for example a (thin?) space as thousands separator for Estonian and Esperanto. But for Portuguese dot / comma is used as thousands / decimal separator
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator> says that that is a correct alternative. 

In Germany DIN 1333, DIN 5008 und ISO 31 recommend to use the thin space as thousands separator, but more or less nobody does it.

@bessa.arc@gmail.com 
Is there any public available standard defining the thin space as only allowed separator?
Comment 2 Alberto Ferreira 2012-06-13 14:09:42 UTC
Please read the document from Bureau International des Poid e Measures and approved on the 22nd General Conference:

http://www1.bipm.org/jsp/en/ViewCGPMResolution.jsp?CGPM=22&RES=10

"," (comma) and "." (dot)  should be used for decimal separator and " " (space) should be used for thousand separator.


Portuguese should be "11 111,11" for default.
Comment 3 Rainer Bielefeld Retired 2012-06-13 22:34:57 UTC
Such communiques are not decisive for us, LibO will follow the common use in a country. 
<http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York>
"... o Censo dos Estados Unidos de 2010, atinge 8.175.133 habitantes ..." seems to tell that the dot as separator is not wrong.

@bessa.arc@gmail.com
Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can contribute conclusive indication that the thin space separator really is common use
Comment 4 bessa.arc 2012-06-14 02:10:19 UTC
Created attachment 63017 [details]
Google docs

although not be a bug, it would be good use a space as the thousands separator, it is what is used in handwriting and teach you in school. As you can see, this is possible in excel and google docs (default)
Comment 5 severoraz 2013-09-03 22:52:50 UTC
Bug #62128 is very similar to this one. The thousands separator should be customizable and spaces (or thin spaces) should be eligible thousands separators, since practically all the world uses space thousands separators by standard.
Comment 6 severoraz 2013-09-03 22:57:41 UTC
Since LibreOffice is being incrementally adopted by nations as default "office" software, and almost every country follows the SI standards (which as cited by our friend bessa, recommend a space as thousands separator and forbid any non-space character as an alternative), solving this bug should be of great importance.
Comment 7 Urmas 2013-09-04 08:38:56 UTC
Thin space is a bad choice due to weak font support.
Comment 8 severoraz 2013-09-17 01:00:19 UTC
Created attachment 85942 [details]
Python script with all relevant functions to solve this bug implemented.

I know LibreOffice is not coded in Python, but I thought I could help this bug be solved a bit with this contribution. All that is needed is to transcribe this code to C++ and modify accordingly so it works in LibreOffice.
Comment 9 severoraz 2013-09-17 01:01:44 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
> Thin space is a bad choice due to weak font support.

According to the SI standard, a normal space is perfect.
Comment 10 Joel Madero 2014-11-06 22:32:29 UTC
Need independent confirmation from QA - moving to UNCONFIRMED. Thanks
Comment 11 Eike Rathke 2014-11-11 12:38:27 UTC
Guys, we are talking about *locale* data, not SI or any other standard. And statements like "practically all the world uses space thousands separators by standard" really don't help, because it might be that it happens to be just the part of the world you know about. This bug is about Portuguese (in Portugal, I guess?) so please don't mix in other observations. I also don't see any Spanish locale mentioned here, so removing ES from the summary again.

At http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/26/by_type/numbers.symbols.html#a1ef41eaeb6982d we see that pt_PT (Portuguese in Portugal) uses the space group separator and all other pt locales use the dot separator.
Comment 12 Commit Notification 2014-11-11 13:13:55 UTC
Eike Rathke committed a patch related to this issue.
It has been pushed to "master":

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/libreoffice/core/commit/?id=580b65510bb6a9ac0069db822d4a176500b8df52

fdo#51008 change [pt-PT] group separator to no-break space

It will be available in 4.4.0.

The patch should be included in the daily builds available at
http://dev-builds.libreoffice.org/daily/ in the next 24-48 hours. More
information about daily builds can be found at:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Testing_Daily_Builds
Affected users are encouraged to test the fix and report feedback.