On Sat, 8 Jan 2011, Paul Eggert wrote: > On 01/08/2011 10:29 AM, Joel E. Denny wrote: > > id -|({letter}|-({letter}|-))({letter}|[-0-9])* > > Sorry, I guess I don't understand the point of this. > Why should "---39---" be an identifier?
I thought we were adding the simple rule that an identifier cannot begin with a negative integer. "---39---" does not begin with a negative integer. > And if so, > why should "--39--" *not* be an identifier? Who says it shouldn't? > The more I think about this, the more I think that it > is a mistake for Bison to allow "-" in identifiers. > This is incompatible with C and with C++ and with Java, Any more than "."? > and is bound to lead to more problems elsewhere. Such as? > Can someone remind me why we're doing this? It's consistent with other identifiers in Bison. Some of us think "-" is easier to type and read than "_". And, so far, I've seen no compelling reason not to do this.