Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!1.eu.feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Keith Thompson Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: Spurious diagnostic messages Date: Sat, 23 May 2015 19:01:36 -0700 Organization: None to speak of Lines: 29 Message-ID: <871ti6rawv.fsf@kst-u.example.com> References: <55586ec4.5718781@news.xs4all.nl> <7af4f97c-d5f3-4bbd-ab6b-6c5b677fa880@googlegroups.com> <556052c8.7856531@news.xs4all.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="9be37d943435275679235b07c7947eef"; logging-data="2324"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1878Cih2d1ExGy7gYTMGZaA" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:9b0bldsbWJEpWiA2laKiX47TDPY= sha1:cOpYEjpSn3ng8Wo1D4MMlEFawBs= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:62508 Bartc writes: [...] > My point is that A-Z is the de-facto standard, just as the 8-bit byte > is, and as the ASCII coding is for that basic alphabet. A-Z is the de facto standard for what exactly? Most methods of transmitting and storing text these days allow for Unicode, typically using either UTF-8 or UTF-16 (the latter is mostly used on MS Windows). You were able to include an é in your recent followup, and I was able to read it on my screen. And there are other ways of encoding non-ASCII characters (see HTML for example). Sure, the ways of *entering* non-ASCII characters are varied and often awkward; that's the price we pay for not having a million or so keys on our keyboards. Written languages were designed for pens, brushes, or styluses; entering text by pressing buttons is a more recent and imperfect innovation. And ASCII is not universal; IBM mainframes using EBCDIC still exist. You're free to ignore them; not everyone has that freedom. [...] -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc. "We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this." -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"