Re: argz_create

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>]

Hello Jonny,


> However "nonempty" is not an English, or American English expression
> we would ever use. Even "non-empty" isn't English, we'd say "not
> empty", although in this sentence there is no need to have this at
> all....
> Maybe in another 50 years "nonempty" will be a word,
> but for now it isn't, so the hyphen is needed. Same as "non-NULL"

But "nonempty" has been a word for a long, long time.
As in "nonempty set", a term you'd use in maths any day.

"non-empty" (with a hyphen) occurs dozens of times in the 
POSIX standard, just to take an example close to home.

Now, one may argue the point about the hyphen, but
re "non" vs "non-" see, for example,
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/HyphensEnDashesEmDashes/faq0079.html

Opinions obviously differ, but the tendency in English
is that thyphens are going away in these cases. I think CMoS
has got it right.

Things like "non-NULL" are exceptional, and it's because
"NULL" is a keyword in C.

Now, as to whether that word "nonempty" is even needed
in that sentence, I am not sure. Presumably the point isto
contrast with the "(NULL,0)" tuple mentioned in the
preceding sentence. In that sense, it's possibly a helpful
word, though I'm not sure it's necessary.

Thanks,

Michael


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/