[Gvsig_english] Language trouble: alphanumeric

[Benjamin Ducke]

Hi all,

this is a question to all of you who speak a Latin-based language.
I am curious about the word "alphanumeric", which is often used
by Spanish, Italian, French, etc. speakers when they talk about
GIS in English.

I have always struggled with the meaning of this, as it does not
seem to fully match the computer science definition 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphanumeric).
For example, it is sometimes used like "geographical alphanumeric"
data or "spatial alphanumeric" data, which would make no sense
given above definition.

So my question is: what exactly does this word mean, which seems
to be so intuitive to many people?

"alphanumeric" = "attribute table data"?

"alphanumeric" = "numbers and strings"?

"alphanumeric" = "database content"?

or just = "digital information"?

Confused,

Ben


------
Files attached to this email may be in ISO 26300 format (OASIS Open Document Format). If you have difficulty opening them, please visit http://iso26300.info for more information.