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Questions around the use of . (dot) and , (comma) based values & calulations

Desktop Info

Last Post by Glenn 1 week ago

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CoolZero

(@coolzero)

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Joined: 4 weeks ago

Posts: 3

Topic starter 25/03/2026 10:13 pm

I've been working with DesktopInfo (version 3.21.0.4966) and encountered some questions related to the use (. and ,) based values in calculations. Used this as an example, to learn / find out how to calulate with values.

Example from: desktopinfo-advanced.ini here is a . used in the calculations:

- {{%CurrentTemperature% removed link }}[1.1f]°C

- set:mbtemp={{%CurrentTemperature% removed link }}[1.0f]C

When I load this configuration, I get Null as the result.

see img: _1.png

Do did some digging:

desktopinfo-advanced.ini us using the MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature WMI class to get temperature but it requires elevated privileges (i do not have on this machine) and trough `wbemtest` lookup my fields are empty

I switched to using Win32_PerfFormattedData_Counters_ThermalZoneInformation (e.g., Temperature or HighPrecisionTemperature), which gives a value in Kelvin, so i though thats it. But However the result was still Null.

After some reading the docs, i tried remove the . (dot) and used \, escape (comma) and the calculation works, and I get a value as result displayed.

Ive included my desktopinfo ini file where my test can be found. To get it working I ended up with rewriting the . into , (not escaped) to be able to use the values within DesktopInfo, and do my calulations..

PS, charts doenst have any issues with using the value, with/without escaping or that it has a . or , aka it works with all < what my espected behavior is how it should work..

see img: _2.png

So im wondering:

- Does DesktopInfo support calculations with . as the decimal separator?

- Or is this a bug in the desktopinfo-advanced.ini?

- Or is this a bug in the calculation, that it should support a . (dot) value, like charts do ?

- Is this behavior of only supporting , (comma) based values in calculation intentional?

- I am receiving data from curl (through -w with reformated values), and the results contain . as decimal separators.

Since DesktopInfo seems to require , (comma) for decimal points in calculations, I need to reformat the incoming data.

Is there any in-built way to handle this?

Attachment : desktopinfo10.ini

Attachment : 1.png

Attachment : 2.png

This topic was modified 3 weeks ago 2 times by CoolZero

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calulations bug ?

Glenn

(@glenn)

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Joined: 8 years ago

Posts: 1867

26/03/2026 8:49 am

I suspect you are in a location where the decimal separator is a comma?

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CoolZero

(@coolzero)

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Joined: 4 weeks ago

Posts: 3

Topic starter 26/03/2026 3:06 pm

No, the opposite — main values contain a dot. The main issue is that I want to use the output of curl directly into DesktopInfo through the --write-out option, making use of the variables:

"%{time_appconnect}", "%{time_connect}", "%{time_namelookup}", "%{time_pretransfer}", "%{time_redirect}", "%{time_starttransfer}", "%{time_total}"

The results are:

curl -s removed link -w "@curlformat.txt"

time_namelookup: 0.030

time_connect: 0.041

time_appconnect: 0.000

time_pretransfer: 0.042

time_redirect: 0.000

time_starttransfer: 0.054

time_total: 0.054

These are all values with a dot (.) (in seconds). They don't work, or any other value containing a . dot cannot be used for calculations. I wanted to convert them into milliseconds when i discovered that . (dot) values dont work and , (comma) values do.

So i was wondering what is the normal behavior for calculations, because Charts do accept . (dot) and , (comma) values so i was suppriced it wasnt working. Even that the advance.ini has calulations with a . (dot) inside them (but they also not working for me).

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Glenn

(@glenn)

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Joined: 8 years ago

Posts: 1867

26/03/2026 6:04 pm

Posted by: @coolzero
↑
So i was wondering what is the normal behavior for calculations, because Charts do accept . (dot) and , (comma) values so i was suppriced it wasnt working. Even that the advance.ini has calulations with a . (dot) inside them (but they also not working for me).

The normal behaviour is that the expression evaluator works correctly with a dot as a decimal separator, hence the inclusion of the temperature calculation in the advanced ini.

It won't work properly if the Windows regional settings uses a comma as a decimal separator. That is the bug.

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CoolZero

(@coolzero)

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Joined: 4 weeks ago

Posts: 3

Topic starter 30/03/2026 8:35 pm

Ahh, check. And indeed my system is indeed with a , (comma) as decimal simbol...

Attachment : 3.png

Glenn reacted

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Glenn

(@glenn)

Member Admin

Joined: 8 years ago

Posts: 1867

05/04/2026 9:15 am

@coolzero While I work out how to deal with this, there is a work-around:

Add the following section to the ini file before the [items] section

[functions]
K2C=%1/10-273,15


[items]
...

This creates a function to do the conversion allowing use of the comma as a decimal separator. %1 is a value passed in to the function.

In the temperature item, replace the temperature calculation with a call to the function.

WMI=interval:10,id:temp,hide-no-result:1,maxrows:1,text:Cpu Temp, set:mbtemp={{K2C:%CurrentTemperature%}}[1.0f]C,\
  namespace:root\wmi,query:MSAcpi_ThermalZoneTemperature, hidden:1

This gets around the issue of the comma trashing the expression.

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Glenn

(@glenn)

Member Admin

Joined: 8 years ago

Posts: 1867

08/04/2026 10:47 am

So I've given this some thought. The only solution I can think of is to force the decimal separator to be '.' inside the math functions so that we can distinguish between a floating point value and two values.

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