2014-02-19 2:30, Michael[tm] Smith wrote:
The following info seems relevant -
http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/comma.html#numbers
"Most authorities, including The Associated Press Stylebook and The Chicago
Manual of Style, recommend a comma after the first digit of a four-digit
number. The exceptions include years, page numbers, and street addresses."
Similar rules apply to other languages as well. Generally, we should
expect implementations to apply documented locale-specific rules (for
some locale determined somehow). There are different grouping rules,
though; not all locales use groups of three digits. Anyway, we should
expect a 4-digit number to be grouped, with some group separator, rather
often.
To me that appears to be a strong argument that formatting of years is in
fact clearly an exception, and that's compelling enough to warrant having a
type for them separate from the normal number type (in which four-digit
numbers would instead have a separator, to follow existing longstanding
conventions).
And what about page numbers and street addresses (and other exceptions)?
If we have <input type=year>, then it would be rather odd to use it for
reading a page number.
Most importantly, though, this would introduce yet another value for the
type attribute for something that can well be handled with existing
tools: <input pattern=\d{4}>. It is improbable that any year selection
widget would be useful. Years are normally best entered by typing them.
On the other hand, as this is about input, not output, a simple
additional rule (which has other usability benefits, too) would solve
the issue, too: User agents may allow locale-specific group separators
in a number (e.g., “1,500” when the locale is English), but they shall
accept a number without group separators, too (e.g., “1500”, in any locale).
Yucca
