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From: NER034@PRIME-A.TEES-POLY.AC.UK
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Key and EKey
Message-ID: <9106020322.AA27114@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 30 May 91 17:40:56 GMT
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Reply-To: NER034%PRIME-A.TEES-POLY.AC.UK@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
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Mitch Bradley writes:

> My current thinking is that EKEY could be eliminated, and KEY should
> be defined to return a *number*, not a character.
> There should be a constant (or perhaps an environment query) for
> MAX-CHARACTER .  If the number returned by KEY is less than MAX-CHARACTER# ,
> then it is a character in the implementation-defined character set.  If the
> number is outside that range, it represents an event (function key, whatever)
> in an implementation-defined event space.  The crucial point is that the
> set of valid characters is well-defined subset of the set of events, and
> it is possible for a program to test whether or not the thing returned
> by KEY is or is not a character.  Presumably, a standard program would
> discard non-character events, or pass them to a system-specific event
> handler routine.

Mitch,

      This sounds like such a good idea that there is simply no chance of
getting it past the TC !


Peter Knaggs
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