Hi,

I’m new to this venue so please have patience with me. Jimbo suggested  
I contact Erik and Erik said I should post here.

Wikipedia authors of magic words and templates could really use a  
character-counting parser function. All the background information can  
be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=260819871 
  - Developer_support_for_parser_function

In a nutshell though, there is currently a template on en.Wikipedia  
called {{val}} that delimits numbers (places what appears to be  
thinspaces very three characters in scientific notation). It currently  
must use math-based techniques to parse the value and this results in  
rounding errors 5–10% of the time.

A character-counting parser function would accept interrogations such  
as “Are there more than four characters remaining in the string when  
counting right from the decimal point?” And “If so, feed me three more  
characters.” Such a parser function would be very handy for many other  
purposes. With a good, bullet-proof parser function, our small army of  
template authors could produce some nice new tools.

I can be reached at [email protected]

Greg
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