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From: Tim Rentsch
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Cake - C23 to C99 transpiler
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2022 23:46:59 -0700
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Keith Thompson writes:
> Tim Rentsch writes:
>
>> Keith Thompson writes:
>>
>>> Bart writes:
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> Also, gcc gets away with allowing $ by default; tcc generally copies
>>>> gcc in terms of how a compiler is invoked, so this surprisingly goes
>>>> against that.
>>>
>>> gcc allowing $ in identifiers is a documented extension for most
>>> targets, so it doesn't warn about them even with "-pedantic". One could
>>> argue that this isn't necessarily an "extension", since "other
>>> implementation-defined characters" are explicitly permitted by C11
>>> 6.4.2.1.
>>>
>>> Interestingly, the C23 draft doesn't have that wording. Instead, it
>>> allows XID_Start and XID_Continue characters, so it expands the set of
>>> characters that *all* implementations must support,
>>
>> I believe that conclusion is not correct. The C23 draft n3047 says
>> this:
>>
>> An XID_Start character is an implementation-defined character
>> whose corresponding code point in ISO/IEC 10646 has the
>> XID_Start property. An XID_Continue character is an
>> implementation-defined character whose corresponding code point
>> in ISO/IEC 10646 has the XID_Continue property.
>>
>> The presence of the modifying adjective "implementation-defined" in
>> both cases surely means, at the very least, that implementations
>> are allowed to subset the Unicode-specified XID_Start/XID_Continue
>> sets with regard to what characters are allowed in identifiers.
>
> You're right. I managed to miss the phrase "implementation-defined".
>
> So ISO/IEC 10646 defines which characters have the "XID_Start" property,
> but an "XID_Start" character is a member of a C implementation-defined
> subset of those characters. The terminology is a bit confusing, but I'm
> not sure how I'd improve it.
I did not consider the question of how to improve the wording in
the ISO C standard.
>>> but doesn't permit '$' (assuming '$' isn't in XID_Start or
>>> XID_Continue).
>>
>> I'm not sure this statement is right either (and agreeing with the
>> assumption that '$' is not in XID_Start or XID_Continue).
To clarify my earlier statement, I am agreeing with (what I think
is your) assumption that '$'s ISO/IEC 10646 code point does not
have either the XID_Start property or the XID_Continue property.
>> The
>> Unicode reference documentation is so bad that I can't make out
>> with any degree of certainty whether it allows various domains to
>> extend the XID_Start/XID_Continue sets for the application in
>> question. The presence of "implementation-defined" further muddies
>> the waters. To be clear, neither am I saying that I think the
>> statement is wrong; only that at present there is not enough
>> information to be confident of either conclusion.
>
> If '$' can't be an XID_Start or XID_Continue character, then an attempt
> to use '$' in an identifier is a syntax error. I don't see any wiggle
> room there. The open question is whether '$' is, or can be, an
> XID_Start or XID_Continue character.
Yes, I believe these statements are consistent with the most
natural reading of the current C23 draft (subject to a condition
that the consistency property can be objectively quantified).