Re: terminal designed for C

From	Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: terminal designed for C
Date	2012-10-26 11:13 -0700
Organization	None to speak of
Message-ID	<ln8vatt83e.fsf@nuthaus.mib.org> (permalink)
References	(4 earlier) <d133dc43-bd8c-4743-9451-e0a9162eab2e@googlegroups.com> <k6bddh$p7m$1@dont-email.me> <8f780903-0e28-4134-8324-dbffbc6374d6@googlegroups.com> <k6cb0d$s0a$1@dont-email.me> <d0b912f2-70cd-4d06-8c42-611c62cb5b54@googlegroups.com>

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kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> writes:
> On Friday, October 26, 2012 8:29:49 AM UTC+11, Eric Sosman wrote:
>> On 10/25/2012 5:11 PM, kerravon wrote:
>> > The C89 Committee considered proposals to add the character constant '\e' to represent the
>> > ASCII ESC ('\033') character. This proposal was based upon the use of ESC as the initial
>> > character of most control sequences in common terminal driving disciplines such as ANSI
>> > X3.64. However, this usage has no obvious counterpart in other popular character codes such as
>> > EBCDIC.
>> 
>> > That's where they wrote it - in the ANSI rationale.
>> 
>>      Yes, I know about the Rationale: I quoted this exact same
>> passage in a reply to you a couple days ago.  But where does
>> this say "there is no escape in EBCDIC?"
>
> They didn't use those exact words, but that is what
> is implied. Perhaps you can use your own words,
> speaking on behalf of a sane X3J11, why \e was not
> provided as part of C89?

Ben and James have already pointed out that that's not what the
rationale says or implies.

I understand you'd like the language to support '\e' (I wouldn't
mind it myself, and there's precedent in Perl).  But the fact is that
it doesn't.  The reasons have already been explained to some extent.
Would understanding the reasons in a bit more detail really help
you in any way?

My suggestion: Consider the amount of effort that would be
required to add a '\e' escape to the C standard, for *all* compiler
implementers to implement it, and for the change to be tested and
deployed widely enough for you to use it.  Compare this to the
amount of effort required to write:

    #ifdef EBCDIC
    #define ESCAPE '\x27'
    #else
    #define ESCAPE '\x1b'
    #endif

Ok, I know that the difficulty of typing those lines is not really
the issue; you're more concerned with being able to express the
escape character portably.  But IMHO it's really not that big a deal.
If you want a language in which all concepts can be expressed 100%
portably, you're looking for something other than C.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org  <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
    Will write code for food.
"We must do something.  This is something.  Therefore, we must do this."
    -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"

Thread

terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-22 21:19 -0700
  Re: terminal designed for C Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-10-22 23:34 -0500
    Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-22 21:56 -0700
  Re: terminal designed for C Sjouke Burry <s@b> - 2012-10-23 14:42 +0000
    Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-10-23 13:06 -0700
      Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-23 15:46 -0700
        Re: terminal designed for C Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2012-10-23 20:29 -0400
          Re: terminal designed for C Lew Pitcher <lpitcher@teksavvy.com> - 2012-10-23 21:26 -0400
          Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-24 02:59 -0700
            Re: terminal designed for C Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2012-10-24 14:15 -0400
            Re: terminal designed for C Lew Pitcher <lpitcher@teksavvy.com> - 2012-10-24 17:23 -0400
  Re: terminal designed for C Lew Pitcher <lpitcher@teksavvy.com> - 2012-10-23 18:55 -0400
    Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-10-23 19:56 -0700
    Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-24 16:10 -0700
      Re: terminal designed for C Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2012-10-24 20:15 -0400
      Re: terminal designed for C Lew Pitcher <lpitcher@teksavvy.com> - 2012-10-24 21:13 -0400
        Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-24 21:09 -0700
          Re: terminal designed for C "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-10-25 11:29 +0100
            Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-25 03:51 -0700
          Re: terminal designed for C James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-10-25 08:49 -0400
          Re: terminal designed for C Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2012-10-25 09:04 -0400
            Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-25 14:11 -0700
              Re: terminal designed for C Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2012-10-25 17:29 -0400
                Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-26 03:33 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-10-26 12:35 +0100
                Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-26 15:46 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-10-26 17:11 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-26 17:27 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-10-27 13:39 +1300
                Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-26 18:30 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-10-26 22:50 -0400
                Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-10-27 01:42 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-10-27 19:18 -0400
                Re: terminal designed for C Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-12-17 10:48 -0800
                Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-12-17 12:27 -0800
                Re: terminal designed for C James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-12-17 15:51 -0500
                Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-12-17 13:35 -0800
                Re: terminal designed for C James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-12-17 16:48 -0500
                Re: terminal designed for C Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-12-17 14:53 -0600
                Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-12-17 13:20 -0800
                Re: terminal designed for C Tim Rentsch <txr@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2012-12-20 10:19 -0800
                Re: terminal designed for C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-10-27 02:35 +0100
                Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-26 18:58 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-10-27 05:01 +0100
                Re: terminal designed for C Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2012-10-27 00:56 -0500
                Re: terminal designed for C James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2012-10-26 09:03 -0400
                Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-10-26 11:13 -0700
                Re: terminal designed for C kerravon <kerravon@w3.to> - 2012-10-26 15:15 -0700
            Re: terminal designed for C lawrence.jones@siemens.com - 2012-11-12 18:08 -0500
  Re: terminal designed for C falk@rahul.net (Edward A. Falk) - 2012-10-24 17:29 +0000
  Re: terminal designed for C Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2012-10-24 11:55 -0700

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