[uf-discuss] Re: Currency + Unit of measurement (Was: Currency+Product)

[Guillaume Lebleu]

Colin wrote:

> This proposal is shaping up nicely. Could you think of other "client" 
> uses for just the measurement format? Already described in this thread 
> were some excellent uses for measurement + currency (e.g. searching 
> job listings).

Thanks Colin. For just the measurement format, of course automatic 
localization based on a browser preference, but I imagine you already 
thought about this one.

> Also, I'm curious to know your thoughts on how this would tie in to 
> the proposed historical uF. Would the entire currency+measure get 
> wrapped in a history? That doesn't seem entirely necessary: the size 
> of a barrel of oil doesn't change (right?). Only the $ currency 
> fluctuates.

In my adaptation of XBRL currency semantics to uF, I have explored the 
use of empty anchors as references to global definitions of units 
instead of redundant local definitions, but I haven't got any feedback 
from the community on this yet. See 
http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-formats#XBRL

This is not just relevant for the history uF but also for any tabular 
representation (ex. financial statements) where you don't want to repeat 
the unit/currency in each cell. See 
http://microformats.org/wiki/currency-examples#Use_of_currency_amounts_in_tables 


Guillaume