Re: Preserving leading zeros

[Ihor Radchenko]

William Denton <wtd@pobox.com> writes:

> I'm thinking about moving a personal library catalogue system into Org.  This 
> would involve ISBNs, and when ISBNs had 10 digits some would have leading 
> zeros. 
> It turns out leading zeros are removed when something looks like a number.
>
> #+name:isbn
> | 0006145396 |
>
> #+begin_src shell :results output :var string=isbn
> echo $string
> #+end_src
>
> #+RESULTS:
> : 6145396

Try 
#+name:isbn
| "0006145396" |

Currently, Org unconditionally converts everything that looks like a
number into numbers using `read'.

We could, in theory, allow passing ;L flags or similar when reading
table reference (see 3.5.2 Formula syntax for Calc). Feel free to write
a feature request if you think that it might be useful.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
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