Add support for scientific notation in number input components

[seancolsen]

Current behavior

• Entering numbers like 8E9 into a NumberInput (or StringifiedNumberInput) is not possible.

Desired behavior

• NumberInput and StringifiedNumberInput accept a prop allowScientificNotation which defaults to false. When true the user can enter numbers in scientific notation and the component will display numbers in scientific notation when appropriate.

Additional context

• See our Number display and entry specs for more information about how scientific notation should work.

Implementation

• Begin by adding allowScientificNotation to Options within src/component-library/number-input/number-formatter/options.ts. This change will allow the components to accept that prop.
• Many of the functions in cleaners.ts will need to be modified to work with scientific notation. Make sure to add tests in cleaners.test.ts.
• formatter.ts will also need modification to display numbers in scientific notation.

[github-actions]

This issue has not been updated in 90 days and is being marked as stale.

[mohamedelhefni]

Hi, is this issue still considerable to work on it?

[kgodey]

Yes, this is still open.

[gulianow]

Hi, I would like to contribute on this project. Is this issue still open? Can you assign me on this issue?

[seancolsen]

Sure @gulianow go ahead

[seancolsen]

Unassigning due to inactivity

[gulianow]

Hi I'm sorry, but I'm still working on that issue, can you give me more time, please. I just need to change couple more things and it will be done. Thanks for understanding.

[seancolsen]

Sure feel free to submit a PR @gulianow. You can still work on it even if you're not assigned to it.

[mathemancer]

@seancolsen are we doing other conversion of numeric input on the front end now as well? I recall avoiding that for consistency, and I'm inclined to prefer that in this case as well, since PostgreSQL handles scientific notation (including the example given, as well as others) smoothly and easily.

• This woule be more consistent w.r.t. our current handling of locale (relevant when the notation includes a decimal point or comma)
• This would make input from pasting data, CSV upload, or excel behave identically to typed input.

[seancolsen]

@gulianow I owe you an apology.

I took a look at your PR for this issue. I can tell you spent a lot of time on it, so thank you! Unfortunately I have some bad news: we have decided to abandon this feature, closing your related PR along with it. I'm very sorry about this.

Upon reviewing your PR, I the complexity of this feature became more apparent to me than I realized when I told you to go ahead and start work just a few months ago. I think I probably foresaw that complexity when I originally open this issue, but in the following year our team underwent some important changes in pace. We are now working much harder to cut scope than we were when I originally opened this issue. We are prioritizing building only the features that will allow us to release a beta version of Mathesar. Building support for scientific notation, while interesting, unfortunately does not meet that bar of being necessary enough for us to spend time on right now. If your PR were close to being merge-ready, then I'd be inclined to spend a small amount of time reviewing it and discussing the necessary follow-up changes with you in order to get it merged. However from reading the diff, I can see that your PR would not actually be quick to review. There are a bunch of complex things to discuss and re-work. This is not your fault. Significant follow-up changes to PRs like this are absolutely part of the normal development process, but in this case it's just not something that our team has time for, given the combination of low priority and high complexity here. This ticket should have been closed a year ago, or perhaps never even opened in the first place.

The maintainers team met today to discuss a number of open issues including this one, and several people weighed in on this together, forming a consensus to close the ticket. We want to collectively apologize for bungling this one though — especially me. Sorry! Towards this end, I'll be reviewing all our "help wanted" tickets very soon in an effort to avoid mishaps like this in the future.

I encourage you to stay involved though! Feel free to reach out within this thread or on Matrix if you have any other questions or need help finding something to work on. I can tell you are capable of making valuable contributions to Mathesar!