sub fnorm { #(string) return fnum_str
local($_) = @_;
s/\s+//g; # strip white space
+ local $^W = 0; # $4 and $5 below might legitimately be undefined
if (/^([+-]?)(\d*)(\.(\d*))?([Ee]([+-]?\d+))?$/ && "$2$4" ne '') {
&norm(($1 ? "$1$2$4" : "+$2$4"),(($4 ne '') ? $6-length($4) : $6));
} else {