On Jan 22, 2013, at 6:18 PM, Jens Alfke wrote: > On Jan 22, 2013, at 3:28 PM, jonat...@mugginsoft.com wrote: > >> Is + (id)letterCharacterSet the best choice here? > > The API docs say "Informally, this set is the set of all characters used as > letters of alphabets and ideographs.” > Which very strongly implies it is not just ASCII, but covers all Unicode > alphabets. > > Some languages, like Java and Go, can handle non-ASCII letters in > identifiers, but most can’t. I would stick with a character set consisting of > only upper and lowercase ASCII letters, digits and the underscore. And you’d > probably want to force the first character to be a lowercase letter since > some languages assign special meaning to identifiers that start with a > capital letter or with an underscore.
I was thinking that by "language" the OP meant linguistic rather than programming. For the latter it is a bit easier to find the lowest common denominator, which is probably strictly ascii alpha and numbers, beginning with lowercase alpha and probably even a character limit of around 12. That would automatically exclude the identifier pattern example provided as most languages do not permit dashes in identifier names (that I know of). Additionally, for higher-level interpreted languages the app would need to understand identifier prefixes such as $, @ and % (and maybe &). Best, Keary Suska Esoteritech, Inc. "Demystifying technology for your home or business" _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: https://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
