From ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk  Thu Feb  6 16:54:03 2003
From: ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk (ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Feb  6 16:54:03 2003
Subject: [Rd] signif {base}: changes to scientific notation
In-Reply-To: <20030206163856.A2812@s1x.zimnet.ch>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0302061546330.2400-100000@gannet.stats>

You are confusing signif() and printing!

signif() returns a real number.

Printing does exactly what it is described to do, and has no concept of 
how the number was produced.

I guess you were looking for format(), which allows more control.

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003, Wolfram Fischer - Z/I/M wrote:

> PROBLEM
>     `signif' does change to scientic notation
>     at different levels depending on the number
>     of significant digits in the input.
> 
>     This can generate tables where figures change
>     ``irregularly'' from normal to scientific notation.
> 
> 
> PROPOSAL
>     The change to the scientific notation should
>     be made only if the figure in scientific notation
>     - with potentially as many significant digits as 
> 	given as argument to the call of `signif' -
>     would be shorter than the figure in normal notation.

This is a misunderstanding of what is happening

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595



[Rd] signif {base}: changes to scientific notation
ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk