[LON-CAPA-users] cleaning up numerical submissions

[Robert F Gonzales]

I was wondering how people clean up numerical submissions before they use
them in calculations.  Loncapa does some of this with regards to spaces in
scientific notation when numbers are entered to answer questions but the
submission is stored as it was entered.  So it seems that I need to do
whatever Loncapa is doing before I use the submission in a math operation.
Here is what it appears that I need to do:

- Remove extra blank spaces, for example:  1 e 1 becomes 1e1, 1  x 10^+1
becomes 1x10^+1.
- Replace the various multiplication signs (x, X, or *) and the base '10'
with an 'e', for example:  1x10^1 becomes 1e^1.
- Remove the '^' symbol, for example:  1e^1 becomes 1e1.

Any insights would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Bob Gonzales
Binghamton University
Chemistry Dept