Alan Watson wrote: > The following, though, seem irregular: > > m. the x in hex characters (although see below); > n. inf and nan; and > o. old character names (i.e., newline and space).
#\newline and #\space are the only irregularities here. The R5RS syntax did not include things like #\x3bb and -inf.0 and +nan.0, so the general principle of being case-sensitive for things that are not specified by the R5RS says those things should be case-sensitive. > In the case of int and nan, one can argue that other numbers are case > insensitive, so these should be too. In the case of #\newline and > #\space, once can argue that the new character names are case sensitive, > so these should be too. However, it seems odd to present these two > arguments simultaneously, as they essentially take the same situation (a > case-insensitive class augmented with some new variations) and arrive at > different conclusions (general case insensitivity in one case and > general case sensitivity in the other). However, the editors may have > had other considerations in mind. Agreed. I don't know what (if anything) the editors had in mind, but I can suggest a reason for the irregularity: The new +inf.0, -inf.0, +nan.0, and -nan.0 are unlike any R5RS syntax, but the new character names are very much like #\newline and #\space. That suggests that it's okay for +inf.0, -inf.0, +nan.0, and -nan.0 to be different from other syntaxes for numbers, but that all character names should be treated the same. As for why all the character names ended up being case-sensitive, I don't know. I suspect it was just another case of the editors believing the community was eager to convert to case-sensitivity. Will _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
