However, with JDK1.5 the format of the text returned from toString() has changed; see:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/math/BigDecimal.html#toString()
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/math/BigDecimal.html#toString()
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/math/BigDecimal.html#toPlainString()
When running under JDK1.5, should use the VM's native formatting or have a custom formatter that uses the representation from JDK1.4 and earlier (perhaps by calling toPlainString())?
If we stick with the native conversion, behaviour will be consistent with BigDecimal.toString() on any given platform but may vary between pre- and post- JDK1.5 VMs. If we stick with the old format then the output from Derby will remain consistent between platforms but on a JDK1.5 platform will differ from BigDecimal.toString() which may be surprising to users.
-- Jeremy
