Every place this function is used, the result is padded with 0s anyway,
so may as well not strip them here. Didn't remove the padding code since
this could return only 4 chars, and most padding is to 8-char width.
1. The first paragraph of a function's NSEdoc is used as a short
summary. Some of these were very long, so I split off a shorter summary.
2. Use asterisks (*) to denote bulletted lists, not 'o'
3. Wrap lines at 80 columns
4. a couple other spelling and formatting fixes
