[XeTeX] Roman Numerals as stylistic alternatives

[Philip TAYLOR (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

Arthur Reutenauer wrote:

>> I'm not entirely convinced that I agree.  I would argue that the "C"
>> of "CXV" means "100", not "1"; in "CMXV" it means "subtract 100".
>> At least, that's what we were taught at school !
>
>    Yes, but if you want to transcribe into Arabic numerals you have to
> translate "C" as "1" in the first case, and the combination "CM" as "9"
> in the second case.  All in all, that's very awkward to do at the
> character level.

Oh, I agree, I agree.  In fact, I was mentally writing a ligature
table for this very problem when your message arrived, and I had
already concluded that such a table would be "not small".

** Phil.