Gossamer Forum: Products: Gossamer Links: Discussions: Making Zero Count

Feb 18, 2004, 9:02 AM

carfac

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Feb 18, 2004, 9:02 AM

Post #1 of 11

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Making Zero Count

Hi:

I am working on a project that involves numbers, and, in this instance, Zero IS a legal number. That is, I want it to count (and show up!) Unfortunately, MySQL and/or Links thinks zero is nothing, and does not "count" it. What I mean is, see the following example of code from my tremplates:

<%if Issue%>
<B>Issue</B> # <%Issue%>
<%endif%>

This will print "Issue # XXX" for all numbers except zero. I am thinking that the "if Issue" statement does not return true for a zero.

Is there any work around anyone knows of?

TIA

dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase

Feb 18, 2004, 9:19 AM

Andy

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 9:19 AM

Post #2 of 11

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Re: [carfac] Making Zero Count In reply to

Are you saying that you have something like 0013, and its being translated to just 13?

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Feb 18, 2004, 9:27 AM

carfac

Veteran (1240 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 9:27 AM

Post #3 of 11

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Re: [Andy] Making Zero Count In reply to

Andy:

No... just plain Jane "0"...

There are some Issue "0"'s involved, And I would like to see "Issue # 0"

BTW, I did try an <%if Issue eq 0%>0<%else%><%Issue%>, but that did not work, either...
dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase

Feb 18, 2004, 9:28 AM

Andy

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 9:28 AM

Post #4 of 11

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Re: [carfac] Making Zero Count In reply to

mmm... odd. Have you tried something like;

<%ifnot Issue%>0<%else%><%Issue%><%endif%>

?

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Feb 18, 2004, 9:46 AM

carfac

Veteran (1240 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 9:46 AM

Post #5 of 11

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Re: [Andy] Making Zero Count In reply to

Andy:

If it were ONLY that easy. There are also non-numbered ones... in which case I DO want nothing to show up!
dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase

Feb 18, 2004, 11:04 AM

Gypsypup

User (226 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 11:04 AM

Post #6 of 11

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Re: [carfac] Making Zero Count In reply to

The problem you are encountering is not a new one - well it is to a point. Ever since the numbering system was invented many thousands of years ago "0" or zero has represented a quantity, not a valid number per se.

'0' is the first in the counting chain, '0' to '9' is the first ten numbers, not '1' to '10' as is taught in schools.

There is the rather interesting oddity that in going in the negative direction '0' to '-9' is also valid - so we have a rather interesting duality of the '0' in the counting chain. The interesting fact about all that is that there is no such thing as '-0'.

The algorithm is I suspect not so difficult if the numbers you require are only in the positive direction. Like everything - what the machines crunch and what is displayed can be two different things. There is no real value in trying to do otherwise. Machines can resond to '0' as a number, they do it all the time. The problem is in the human minds limited capacity to understand all this.

My (ex) wife was a mathematical genius - mensa material. Thats how I came to know all this - I am not bright eough.

Feb 18, 2004, 11:12 AM

carfac

Veteran (1240 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 11:12 AM

Post #7 of 11

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Re: [Gypsypup] Making Zero Count In reply to

The problem as I see it is that I see a difference between Zero and Null. Zero- nothing, no quantity- is still something... NULL is nothing.
dave

Big Cartoon DataBase
Big Comic Book DataBase

Feb 18, 2004, 11:16 AM

Gypsypup

User (226 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 11:16 AM

Post #8 of 11

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Re: [carfac] Making Zero Count In reply to

Yes - and I guess that you want only number ranging, not quantity.

Last edited by:

Gypsypup: Feb 18, 2004, 11:22 AM

Feb 18, 2004, 11:25 AM

Andy

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 11:25 AM

Post #9 of 11

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Re: [Gypsypup] Making Zero Count In reply to

On the other hand though, you may want to use 1 and 0 as true/false conditions...i.e;

Code:
<%set Field = '0'%>  
<%if Field%>shouldnt show, cos Field=0<%endif%>

Just my 2 cents :)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Feb 18, 2004, 11:28 AM

Gypsypup

User (226 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 11:28 AM

Post #10 of 11

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Re: [Andy] Making Zero Count In reply to

Thats what I am trying to extract at the moment - it what is required is, eg, '0' to say, '9,999' or wahtever instead of '1' to '9,999'.

Feb 18, 2004, 11:32 AM

Andy

Veteran / Moderator (18441 posts)

Feb 18, 2004, 11:32 AM

Post #11 of 11

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Re: [carfac] Making Zero Count In reply to

You could try a global;

Code:
sub { 
  my $_in = int($_[0]) || "0"; 
  return $_in; 
}

...and call with:

<%global_name($Issue)%>

Untested, but i don't see why it shouldn't work :)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk