From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Joshua Cranmer Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 01:44:15 GMT Message-ID: References: <5c2mbdF2ung8hU1@mid.individual.net> <1180481373.651591.253210@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com> Reply-To: blah@somewhere.invalid NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1180507606 12678 80.91.229.12 (30 May 2007 06:46:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 06:46:46 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed May 30 08:46:45 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HtHxC-0005oQ-JN for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 May 2007 08:46:43 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1HtHxB-0000zw-CP for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 30 May 2007 02:46:41 -0400 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news2.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamkiller.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!trnddc08.POSTED!3b9e828c!not-for-mail User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Windows/20070221) Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs In-Reply-To: <1180481373.651591.253210@i38g2000prf.googlegroups.com> Original-Lines: 57 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 71.126.182.130 Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net Original-X-Trace: trnddc08 1180489455 71.126.182.130 (Tue, 29 May 2007 21:44:15 EDT) Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 21:44:15 EDT Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:148952 comp.emacs:94394 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 30 May 2007 02:45:15 -0400 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:44543 Archived-At: xah@xahlee.org wrote: > Will wrote: > «a) _or_ C-q » > > The C-q (or, pressing the Control key down then type q) is the > keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-insert. It is a > general a way to allow you to input any non-printable characters. This > facility usually don't exist in other text editors. In popular text > editor such as Microsoft Word or Mac's Application, you usally bring > up a window showing all the special characters, then press a button to > insert the char you want. I would not go so far as to call Microsoft Word and Mac's Application "popular text editor [sic]"; I believe the proper term is "WYSIWYG word processors." Try programming in Word and then see if you would still claim that it is a text editor. > « b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i» > > When speaking of non-printable characters, the context is a character > set standard. Implicitly, we are talking about ASCII, and this applies Not technically. Implicitly, on any *NIX machine newer than, say, 2000, it implicitly refers to Utf-8, and Windows on English (or other Latin-based configuration, presumably) it would be ISO-8859-1 or Cp1252. > « c) \e, \r, \n, \t » > > This is a ad-hoc set of input and display representation for a few non- > printable characters. This set is started by the motherfucking unix Watch your language here! > tech geeking morons, and by its free and speedy nature as cigarette > given to children, today has spread to many languages (Perl, Java, C+ > +, C#, Python, JavaScript ...) and is a de facto standard. The damage > is to such a degree that the general concept of unprintable > characters, their representation, and their method of input, all > treated in one systematic, simple way, are not in the consciousness of > average industrial programers. Far from it. Excusing your depressing lack of hyphens and incorrect spelling of simple words, the slash-character is neither ad-hoc nor damage-inducing. Because there are several non-standard ways to input control codes (not non-printable; HT prints something as much as ' ' does), the people who wrote the original C specification (not "unix tech geeking [sic]") decided to include such control codes as standard character references. The use of '\' as a control character makes perfect sense, as it tends to be rarely used in everyday stuff, and it already is a control character (think macros). Many of the languages cited -- although, interestingly enough, not C -- take as their source the B/CPL syntax, a.k.a. C syntax, to provide a familiar backdrop to new programmers. Finally, I would like to address your idiotic usage of newsgroups. You are cross-posting a message about EMACS syntax to two (2) emacs newsgroups, a LISP group (I can sort of understand that), and a Perl and Java newsgroup. Well, at least you're cross-posting.