Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Keith Thompson Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: encapsulating directory operations Date: Thu, 22 May 2025 18:24:49 -0700 Organization: None to speak of Lines: 89 Message-ID: <8734cwunj2.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> References: <100h650$23r5l$1@dont-email.me> <20250520065158.709@kylheku.com> <100i2la$292le$1@dont-email.me> <87a5770xjw.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> <100j09o$2f04b$1@dont-email.me> <87tt5ezx9y.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> <100j4t3$2foah$1@dont-email.me> <87ldqqzfj0.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> <100kak8$2q0s6$1@dont-email.me> <87a575zvmb.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> <100o75g$3mc08$1@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Date: Fri, 23 May 2025 03:24:54 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="a36cf223f85aef33d75c7d55cd737c07"; logging-data="3948976"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/X5V2oXlKodLTJtF+JpLEV" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Cancel-Lock: sha1:COuI9dF0ZWTgAF1R8vIOFIwTA2A= sha1:NgTKoKDvSDyycK6gQy/b7i0EB7U= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:393556 "Paul Edwards" writes: > "Keith Thompson" wrote in message > news:87a575zvmb.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com... > >> > I can't think of any other way to control an ASCII/EBCDIC >> > ANSI X3.64 terminal without language/library support. >> >> But there's no such thing. I recall looking into this last time we >> discussed this, and ANSI X3.64 is defined in terms of ASCII. > > I didn't fully answer this either. > > Yes, if you want to be pedantic, the ANSI X3.64 uses the > word ASCII, because they didn't spend any effort considering > that someone might want to do exactly the same thing on an > EBCDIC system - in the future - because there was no such > thing in existence at that time. > > But if that committee had spent the effort to consider EBCDIC, > they probably would have reworded the language. I believe that is unfounded speculation. I'm nearly certain that the designers of ANSI X3.64 were aware of EBCDIC. We know that they wrote a standard that depends on ASCII and not on EBCDIC. I presume this was an entirely deliberate choice, not an unfortunate oversight that they would have reconsidered if they had only taken a moment to think about it. > But regardless - if you want to be really pedantic, forget about > ANSI X3.64 completely. I am creating a new standard called > non-ANSI X3.64, which allows either ASCII or EBCDIC, > so any reference to "ASCII" is replaced with "character set" > or any other term that means "ASCII or EBCDIC or maybe > even other things". And you're free to do that, of course. My personal opinion is that defining a new standard based on ANSI X3.64 except that it supports EBDIC is a waste of time. I'm not aware that anyone other than you wants such a thing or would use it if it were available. But it's not my job to tell you how to spend your time and effort. > I do not believe this is difficult to understand. > > I do not believe I have not made myself clear. > > However, my perspective may be incorrect, and if you still > don't understand, it would be great if someone could > translate English to English. > > I have this problem quite a lot. I don't know why - it's as > clear as day to me. Just like the C90 thing. Obviously I'm > not talking about inventing a time machine and/or sneaking > into the ISO office and changing all their existing copies > of C90 and then all the other copies everywhere in the > world, and all the derivatives too. > > That is VERY OBVIOUS to me. > > But for whatever reason, my casual use of "update C90" > is treated as if I am about to invent not just a time machine, > but coerce the existing members of the C90 committee to > do what I want. > > Which is obviously ridiculous, so "clearly" not what I meant. > > And the obvious alternative to the above, was obvious all > along. TO ME. I'm sure it was obvious to you. The problem is that you prioritize a lot of things that most other people consider to be useless. Your EBCDIC-based not-quite-ANSI-X3.64 "standard" is an example. I'm *not* telling you not to do all this stuff. If you want build some large project that nobody else in the world needs or wants, feel free. Nobody asked for 139 different C implementations of FizzBuzz, but I did that, just for the fun of it. But if someone thinks that an EBCDIC-based terminal standard is vital to the post-apocalytic future of humanity, it's not a big stretch to think that the same person wants to make changes to the C90 standard and have the modified document be recognized as "C90". But you've now made it clear that that's *not" what you're doing, so I'm not sure what you're still complaining about. There was a misunderstanding, and you've cleared it up. -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */