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From: Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com>
Newsgroups: comp.programming
Subject: Re: My answer about Ada and FreePascal and C++
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 2016 01:07:16 +0000 (UTC)
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On 2016-01-01, JJ <jj4public@vfemail.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Dec 2015 18:59:26 +0000, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> 
>> ... Pascal incorrectly uses the semicolon as a 
>> separator rather than as a terminator, ...
>
> What kind of separator is that?
> I've used Pascal since Turbo Pascal 4 and up to Free Pascal Compiler and
> Delphi, but I've never seen a semicolon used a separator.

See this Pascal BNF grammar, for instance, which looks like
some traditiona, old Pascal:

http://www2.informatik.uni-halle.de/lehre/pascal/sprache/pas_bnf.html

In every production where a semicolon terminal symbol appears, it is
preceded and followed by something (a something which doesn't derive
an empty string). Hence it is a separator.

Never mind that, I'm looking now at a copy of what appears to be the ISO
Pascal 1990 standard, ISO/IEC 7185:1990 (E).

This document defines a grammar which has some terminating uses
of the semicolon, notably in the area of declarations. To wit,

  6.2.1 type-definition-part = [ 'type' type-definition ';' { type-definition ';' } .

and various other examples.  However:

  6.8.3.1 statement-sequence = statement { ';' statement } .

Likewise, various others.

This inconsistency is arguably worse than making the semicolon always a
separator or always a terminator.