Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.lang.c > #16598

Re: trigraphs, yecch

Show all headers | View raw

Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> writes:

> Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> writes:
> [...]
>> Has the C standards committee been flamed enough for trigraphs?  I don't
>> think so.  I bet there's 1000 programmers bitten by them for every 1
>> who's been helped.  By 1989 anyone who didn't have an editor capable of
>> typing any 7-bit ASCII character was a hopeless luddite who would be
>> better served making their own pre-preprocessing phase for C and leaving
>> the language unchanged instead of another phase in the preprocessor for
>> every C program forever and ever.
>
> By 1989, there were plenty of C programmers using EBCDIC-based systems.

I would argue with "plenty".  C was not a popular language in IBM shops.
IBM shops typically didn't do systems programing of the sort C is great
for, and if they did they'd probably use PL/1.  By 1989, EBCDIC was
clearly on its way out.  The PC used ASCII.  People in shops that used
EBCDIC mostly already had tools to convert to ASCII when needed.

> There probably still are, though not as many.  I understand there were
> also some C programmers using keyboards and character sets that replaced
> some ASCII punctuation characters with accented letters; that's probably
> not as much of a concern these days.

I think that was the standards committee's motivation.  However, a
crippled subset of ASCII was not a satisfactory approach to anyone.
People in countries using those accented characters still needed
brackets and braces sometimes.  They pretty often needed to represent
multiple languages with accented characters in the same document and a
national character set doesn't allow that at all.

> I would have preferred a solution in which trigraphs are disabled by
> default, and can be enabled explicitly by a directive at the top of each
> source file.

They should have stuck to using a standalone independent preprocessor
just for character set issues for another few years until Unicode came
along.  In 1991, the first volume of the Unicode standard was
published.

-- Patrick

Back to comp.lang.c | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

trigraphs, yecch cri@tiac.net (Richard Harter) - 2012-01-31 15:55 +0000
  Re: trigraphs, yecch pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-01-31 11:05 -0500
    Re: trigraphs, yecch Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-01-31 16:47 +0000
      Re: trigraphs, yecch cri@tiac.net (Richard Harter) - 2012-01-31 17:21 +0000
        Re: trigraphs, yecch James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-01-31 12:26 -0500
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-01-31 11:40 -0600
          Re: trigraphs, yecch Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-01-31 15:22 -0800
            Re: trigraphs, yecch "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-02-01 01:09 +0000
              Re: trigraphs, yecch James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-01-31 22:21 -0500
              Re: trigraphs, yecch Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-01-31 21:25 -0800
            Re: trigraphs, yecch "Charles Richmond" <netnews@aquaporin4.com> - 2012-01-31 23:40 -0600
              Re: trigraphs, yecch Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-01-31 22:19 -0800
                Re: trigraphs, yecch James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-02-01 08:27 -0500
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-01-31 17:47 +0000
        Re: trigraphs, yecch ImpalerCore <jadill33@gmail.com> - 2012-01-31 09:41 -0800
        Re: trigraphs, yecch pete <pfiland@mindspring.com> - 2012-01-31 13:17 -0500
  Re: trigraphs, yecch blp@cs.stanford.edu (Ben Pfaff) - 2012-01-31 09:56 -0800
  Re: trigraphs, yecch Peter Nilsson <airia@acay.com.au> - 2012-01-31 13:55 -0800
    Re: trigraphs, yecch Harald van Dijk <haraldvdijk@gmail.com> - 2012-01-31 14:02 -0800
      Re: trigraphs, yecch blp@cs.stanford.edu (Ben Pfaff) - 2012-01-31 14:06 -0800
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Harald van Dijk <haraldvdijk@gmail.com> - 2012-01-31 15:13 -0800
        Re: trigraphs, yecch "Charles Richmond" <netnews@aquaporin4.com> - 2012-01-31 23:44 -0600
          Re: trigraphs, yecch Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-01-31 22:20 -0800
            Re: trigraphs, yecch James Harris <james.harris.1@googlemail.com> - 2012-01-31 22:56 -0800
              Re: trigraphs, yecch Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-02-01 12:15 +0000
  Re: trigraphs, yecch Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-01-31 15:27 -0800
    Re: trigraphs, yecch Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> - 2012-01-31 17:01 -0800
      Re: trigraphs, yecch Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-01-31 19:50 -0800
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> - 2012-02-01 10:31 -0800
      Re: trigraphs, yecch James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-01-31 23:17 -0500
        Re: trigraphs, yecch "Joachim Schmitz" <nospam.jojo@schmitz-digital.de> - 2012-02-01 10:39 +0100
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-02-01 17:20 +0000
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> - 2012-02-01 11:11 -0800
      Re: trigraphs, yecch "Charles Richmond" <netnews@aquaporin4.com> - 2012-01-31 23:50 -0600
        Re: trigraphs, yecch ralph <nt_consulting64@yahoo.net> - 2012-02-01 11:56 -0600
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> - 2012-02-01 11:12 -0800
        Re: trigraphs, yecch Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-02-01 13:29 -0600
          Re: trigraphs, yecch blp@cs.stanford.edu (Ben Pfaff) - 2012-02-01 11:35 -0800
            Re: trigraphs, yecch Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-02-01 19:59 +0000
              Re: trigraphs, yecch blp@cs.stanford.edu (Ben Pfaff) - 2012-02-01 12:41 -0800
                Re: trigraphs, yecch Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-02-01 22:55 +0000
            Re: trigraphs, yecch Stephen Sprunk <stephen@sprunk.org> - 2012-02-01 14:44 -0600
              Re: trigraphs, yecch Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-02-01 22:55 +0000
        Re: trigraphs, yecch "christian.bau" <christian.bau@cbau.wanadoo.co.uk> - 2012-02-02 14:19 -0800
          Re: trigraphs, yecch Patrick Scheible <kkt@zipcon.net> - 2012-02-06 20:40 -0800
            Re: trigraphs, yecch "Joachim Schmitz" <nospam.jojo@schmitz-digital.de> - 2012-02-07 11:40 +0100
      Re: trigraphs, yecch jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2012-02-02 14:15 +0000
  Re: trigraphs, yecch cri@tiac.net (Richard Harter) - 2012-02-01 16:52 +0000

csiph-web