Decimal point in ISO specifications

[Robert Weir/Cambridge/IBM <robert_weir@us.ibm.com>]

The guideline for drafting ISO standards is ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 
"Rules for the Structure and Drafting of International Standards".  Most 
if it is common sense, or at the very least familiar to us.  However, 
there are some specific items dealing with the expression of numeric 
quantities and units that we should be aware of.

Specifically, we need to look at the requirements of 6.6.8 "Representation 
of numbers and numerical values":


6.6.8.1 The decimal sign shall be a comma on the line in all language 
versions.

Also:

6.6.8.3 Each group of three digits reading to the left or to the right of 
a decimal sign shall be separated by a space from preceding digits or 
following digits respectively, except for four digit numbers designating 
years.

Luckily most instances of numeric literals appear to be in examples, which 
we are planning to separate from the specification.  So we don't need to 
worry about those.  However, we do have some embedded numeric literals. 
For example in the CONVERT() function:

"International acre (using international feet), exactly 4046.8564224 m2; 
normally not used for U.S. land areas"

Which will need to be:

"International acre (using international feet), exactly 4 046,856 422 4 m2
; normally not used for U.S. land areas"

Another point we are violating on occasion is:

6.6.8.4 For clarity, the symbol X [multiplication sign]  rather than a 
point shall be used to indicate multiplication of numbers and numerical 
values.

http://www.iec.ch/tiss/iec/Directives-Part2-Ed5.pdf