Re: Recurring decimal - international question

On Tue, 07 Feb 2006 22:43:36 GMT, Gerry Myerson wrote:

In article <1139349781.558685.277850@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Randy Poe" <poespam-trap@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've occasionally seen the parenthesis notation. Never
the dot. How would you indicate more than one repeating
digit with the dot notation?

By using 2 dots, one each over the first & last digits
in the repeating part.

That's the way I was taught in the UK. I hadn't come across the parenthesis
notation, but I'm interested to hear that it exists, because I re-invented
it myself recently. I got interested in recurring fractions with long
period, and wanted to write a little program to calculate an arbitrary
fraction in an arbitrary (1) number base and produce the answer as a
character string. To do it, I had to be able to leave the digits alone and
express the notion of recurringness with other characters. Having invented
it, I much prefer it now.

Andy

(1) well, quasi-arbitrary. I restricted it to less than base 36 for obvious
alphanumeric reasons. Although with just-acquired hindsight, base 62 would
have been more fun.
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