Template talk:Gaps

Repeating decimal

Should this template have a parameter for repeating decimals, like r=142857 for .1̅4̅2̅8̅5̅7̅ ? VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs

What just happened? (gaps was expanding to nothing and furthermore screwing up line breaks, magically fixed after an unrelated edit)

I just had occasion to look at the Binary prefix article, which uses this template extensively. I was surprised to see that many lines in the rendered display were not being broken properly; they ran off the right edge of my browser screen.

Further investigation showed that this happened anyplace this template was being used. The template was not expanding to the proper text, it was ignoring its arguments and expanding to nothing (a null string? Maybe a 0.2em space? I don't know, didn't check that closely). Furthermore it somehow caused this "non-breaking line" effect in any line in which it was used (in the cases I checked).

I tried this in both Chrome and IE, no change. I wish I'd gotten a screen cap of it.

While looking at this I also noticed a case where we had used the gaps template, but its need went away... so the template call was removed, but the word "gaps" remained as ordinary text. So while I was looking at the wikitext I thought, "why not remove that". You can see my edit in the page diffs.

When I saved the page, all of the output of gaps and all of the line wraps were back to normal!

Viewing the previous version of the page does not restore the error.

My suspicion: I see that this template was modified two days ago. Was it necessary to edit the page to get the edited template to work right? There isn't a problem at the moment; I'd just like to understand what went on. Jeh (talk) 23:18, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

@Jeh: There was temporarily a mistake in the template code. Editing the page wasn't necessary to fix it; a WP:PURGE would have sufficed. Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:50, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

The new template was broken. I reverted to working version. Please test new code before installing new-fangled stuff. Kbrose (talk) 17:08, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Everything should be fixed now. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:51, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Width of the spaces

By using a 1⁄5 em space instead of a 1⁄4 em space this template is out of sync with {{val}} and {{convert}}. Notice, for example, that the version below with {{gaps}} is shorter than that of the other two.

template	output
{{gaps}}	1123123123123 m (606437971.449 nmi)
{{val}}	1123123123123 m (606437971.449 nmi)
{{convert}}	1123123123123 m (606437971.449 nmi)

I suggest this template use a 1⁄4 em space for consistency. Jimp 13:57, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Support. I have just noticed this inconsistency as well. I think that 1⁄5 em space is too small, so 1⁄4 em is the way to go. Petr Matas 17:36, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

@Jimp:  Done. Petr Matas 17:59, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Jimp 01:25, 8 September 2016 (UTC)