Re: Using C23 digit separators not locale digit grouping characters

Brian Inglis
2023-02-08T22:10:48Z

On 2023-02-08 14:06, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Hi Jakub!
>
> On 2/8/23 22:00, Jakub Wilk wrote:
>> * Tom Schwindl <schwindl@posteo.de>, 2023-02-03 13:27:
>>> I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks that the digit separators look
>>> irritating for both, hex and octal.
>>
>> Not only you.
>>
>> I think C23's choice of separator is particularly bad. I found underscores
>> (used in Perl, Ruby, Python 3, Java, Rust, and likely many others) more
>> palatable.
>
> IIRC, that was suggested at some point for C23, but don't remember; maybe it's a glitch in my memory (I think it was suggested for separating binary (0b) input). I can't understand how they chose ', especially when in some countries it's used as the decimal point (I don't know if that's official, but I've seen it in hand-written text quite often here in Spain). I agree that it's probably one of the worst separators they could have chosen.
>
> Do you think we should use an underscore in the manual pages? Or what would you do?

See discussion 10 years ago in WG21 C++:

https://open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2013/n3499.html

where ambiguity with C++ user-defined literal unit operators and "_" was an
issue, and Objective C/C++ parsing problems with using whitespace.

So in 2020 WG14 C, opting for compatibility with WG21 C++; quoting:

Prior Art: C++, Intel ICC, EDG, Microsoft Visual Studio
in
https://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG14/www/docs/n2606.pdf
https://www.open-std.org/JTC1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n2626.pdf

FYI see comment in:

https://thephd.dev/c-the-improvements-june-september-virtual-c-meeting

"Guess who uses apostrophes for digit separators! The SWISS! And who is in
Switzerland? ISO! I see WG14 is no less corrupt than WG21.
— Miro Knejp" ;^>

We are going to be seeing these used a lot in future from GCC , and as man-pages
are immersed in a sea of C, we might as well start getting used to it, which is
why I made that suggestion.

--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer but when there is no more to cut
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry