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There is a long-standing requirement for the ability to format floating point numbers in scientific notation. This appeared as a requirement for XSLT 2.0, but it has never been satisfied. Note that the Java DecimalFormat class, on which format-number() is based, accepts pictures such as 0.###E0 to request scientific notation.
At their meeting of 2012-09-25, the Joint WGs agreed to make this a candidate requirement for F&O 3.1
Note: The WG agreed we will also need other data formats frequently found in Web applications, such as Unix/RFC timestamps, HTML 5 date/time for example.
Notes from meeting #523: <quote> Q2.9.20 Bugzilla Bug 18447, [XQ31ReqUC] Formatting numbers in scientific notation See http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=18447 Liam: may be wanted for json in practice along with Unix-format (RFC) dates. Mike Kay: if you take JSON use cases seriously, Web services and HTTP headers will emerge. Jonathan: when it emerges we can consider it. scientific notation (read and write) YES, scientific notation (required in JSON) PLUS additional data types commonly used in JavaScript. </quote>
This will be a MAY requirement.
This bug has been re-directed to the F&O 3.1 document, as the requirement has been accepted (as a MAY requirement).
The specification of format-number() in XPath 3.1 has been extended to satisfy this requirement. The bug entry is therefore being closed as resolved/fixed.