Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.UUCP (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Vocabularies
Message-ID: <701.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 22 Mar 90 23:46:26 GMT
Organization: Latest link in the ForthNet chain.  (Pgh, PA)
Lines: 47


 Date: 03-21-90 (01:09)              Number: 3057 (Echo)
   To: ALL                           Refer#: NONE
 From: CHRIS WATERS                    Read: (N/A)
 Subj: VOCABULARYS/CONSTANTS         Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE

 re: R.Berkey to all, re: Chris Waters

 RB( CW>   If you could, I'd like some more details about why you have
 RB( CW>problems with these constants.
 RB( ...
 RB( To complicate things, that particular implementation is gone.  There
 RB( INTERPRETERS vocabulary that contains, among others, the ( and \ wor
 RB( vocabulary is used to advance the input stream pointer over the comm

    Well, it sounds like you already did what I suggested in another
 post:  sidestep the problem by using vocabularies.  It's nice to see
 that at least some of my (admitted) speculation about this subject
 has been borne out in the field.  For your particular application,
 have you considered trying the input as a number first, and then, if
 that fails, searching the dictionary?  (Probably too much work for a
 simple data-structure definition, oh well...)

 RB( The NUMERALS implementation can be simple.  It adds one vocabulary t
 RB( compiler search order, without affecting the normal search order. An

    I jumped into this discussion purely from an instinctive sense
 that anything that reacted badly to the _name_ of a constant, even
 if that name _could_ be interpreted as a number, must be wrong.  It
 still seems like the kind of problem that might arise in a pascal-
 to-forth port; very un-forthlike.  I never thought that implementing
 or supporting it would _difficult_... <grin>

    My original suggestion of new data-types for the constants was
 based on gross overestimation of what these problems might be.  I am
 glad that no such drastic solution seems to be needed.

    I'd like to thank everyone for their interesting and informative
 replies on this matter.

 -> MegaMail(tm) #0:to be read while thinking of Maude
    1.12

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