RE: numeric properties of Nl characters in the UCD

[Arcane Jill]

...which brings me back to my question (which no-one's answered yet). 
What do the properties "digit" versus "decimal digit" actually MEAN? Is 
it possible for someone to give a PRECISE definition. I mean, it seems 
pretty clear that "decimal digit" does NOT mean "radix ten digit" 
(otherwise circled digit 2 would be a "decimal digit", and it isn't). I 
can only assume that the INTENDED meaning of what is (erroneously?) 
called "decimal digit" is "a character which is permitted to play a part 
in a positional number system" - thus "2" is a decimal digit because it 
can form part of the legal number "123", but circled digit 2 is not 
because "1â3" is not a legal number. Am I even close?

This being so, it is possible that the (misnamed) property "decimal 
digit" should also apply to Ewellic hex digits. They're not radix ten, 
but that's not what "decimal digit" means anyway. They ARE capable of 
being used in a positional number system.

Of course, "1Â3"  is not a legal number either, despite the fact that 
superscript 2 DOES have the "decimal digit" property. Maybe the answer 
is that "ÂÂ" can be interpretted as superscript 23, but "ââ" can't be 
interpretted as circled 23 ?

I am not certain on any of this, and will admit to being confused. What 
I AM certain of is that I would like to see a formal and precise, 
unambiguous definition of the meanings of the "decimal digit", "digit" 
and "numeric" properties. If no such definition exsits, then I suggest 
that one is needed.

Jill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Ewell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2003 7:18 AM
> To: Unicode Mailing List
> Cc: D. Starner
> Subject: Re: numeric properties of Nl characters in the UCD
>
>
> Note especially the "number" fields for the hex digits: they are
> numeric, they are even digits, but they're not *decimal* digits.