Plainnumber

Plainnumber is an informal term used to describe a numeric representation that consists solely of basic digits and, when applicable, a sign and decimal point, without locale-specific formatting, grouping characters, currency symbols, or other annotations. The concept is most often used in computing, data interchange, and databases to denote a canonical, machine-friendly form of a number that is easy to parse and compare.

In practice, a plainnumber might be "12345", "-12.34", or "0.001", contrasted with formatted variants such as "12,345", "12.345,00 €", or "[phone]". Plainnumbers are helpful when normalizing input from user interfaces, preparing data for APIs, or storing identifiers and numeric values in a language-agnostic way. They reduce ambiguity introduced by locale-dependent conventions for decimal separators and digit grouping.

Limitations include loss of human-readable cues such as thousands separators and currency context; presentation layers typically reformat plainnumbers for display. Validation and normalization are important to ensure that plainnumbers convey the intended value—this can require rules for leading zeros, sign handling, precision, and permitted characters. Related concepts include canonicalization, serialization formats (e.g., JSON numeric values), and plain-text identifiers. The term is not standardized and may be used with varying meanings across different technical communities.