From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [PATCH] Unicode Lisp reader escapes Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 15:05:32 -0400 Message-ID: References: <17491.34779.959316.484740@parhasard.net> <87odyfnqcj.fsf-monnier+emacs@gnu.org> <17498.11949.75640.41779@parhasard.net> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1146856029 2677 80.91.229.2 (5 May 2006 19:07:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 19:07:09 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri May 05 21:07:08 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Fc5dr-0001EM-6c for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 21:07:07 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Fc5dq-0008Fo-QZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:07:06 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Fc5cN-0007Xo-Gq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:05:35 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1Fc5cM-0007Wo-0q for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:05:34 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Fc5cL-0007Wi-JZ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:05:33 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.164] (helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1Fc5cY-00055d-QP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:05:46 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1Fc5cK-0005oc-91; Fri, 05 May 2006 15:05:32 -0400 Original-To: Aidan Kehoe In-reply-to: <17498.11949.75640.41779@parhasard.net> (message from Aidan Kehoe on Thu, 4 May 2006 18:41:17 +0200) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:53966 Archived-At: > Regarding \u: the question is whether an Emacs escape for Unicode > characters should be compatible with C string syntax for Unicode > characters, or coherent with the Emacs \x escape. The thing with the Emacs \x escape is that anyone using it for characters outside of ASCII is asking for pain, and always has been. It has only ever been clearly defined for that character set; any existing code in the repository for other characters, for example, _will definitely_ break with the merging of the Unicode branch. We are miscommunicating. Whether it is wise to use \x is not the question. The issue I am talking about is that of _coherence_ (parallelism of syntax) between \x and \u. > I think one relevant question is to what extent the C and Emacs Lisp > string syntax are compatible in the first place. Emacs Lisp string > syntax was largely based on C string syntax in 1984, but I don't know > how C has developed since 1990. Can someone report on this question? The \u syntax (with a fixed number of digits) came into wide use with Java in 1996. The necessity for the \U extension arose with progress towards version 3.0 of Unicode and its ~1.1 million available code points. That version of the standard was released in 1999; the C99 ISO standard for C of the same year included both \u and \U. Various other C-oriented programming languages have incorporated the syntax since. Thank you, but my question here is not about \u. Rather, it is about whether there are OTHER incompatibilities between Emacs Lisp and C string syntax. I want to see that information before deciding what to do here.