Show quoted text>Consider the following cases.
>
> 00.1 I think a person would say "nought point one" or "zero point one".
> 007 Ok, this is an intentionally funny case, but here people would say "oh oh seven" or "zero zero seven".
> 0700 Here I think someone might say "oh seven hundred"
>
> So then I thought about what exactly is this module doing? Converting
> *numbers* (not digit strings, for example) into words.
>
> So I think:
>
> 00.1 should be treated as 0.1
> 007 should be treated as 7
> 0700 should be treated as 700
>
> What do you think?
It hangs on the definition "numbers" and I don't think there would be one solution that would suit all cases.
More generally I'd suggest that the module is for converting *number-like strings* into a corresponding sequence of words that aims to match *what a human would say when reading that string*.
In my case I'm using it to normalize transcripts so I can compare them. Some transcripts are written by humans, and others by software, all interpreting the same audio.
I can see your point that the "num" in num2en suggests that the argument should be numeric (i.e. IV/NV) and arbitrary strings could be assumed to be converted to a number first, e.g. via +=0.
If you take that approach then I think there's a clear need for a extra sub that takes a "number-like string" instead. That sub, or perhaps num2en with an extra param, could do the rough equivalent of
if (m/^0/) {
print "zero " while s/^0//; # handle leading zeros
$spell_out_each_digit = 1; # new feature :)
}
So 0700 would be "zero seven zero zero" not "zero seven hundred".
Tim.
