Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!ENG.SUN.COM!Mitch.Bradley From: Mitch.Bradley@ENG.SUN.COM Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Input/Output Message-ID: <9106051420.AA01541@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 5 Jun 91 00:10:13 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Mitch.Bradley%ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV Distribution: world Organization: The Internet Lines: 39 > I don't think that the range of input accepted by CHAR or by KEY or by > EKEY have something to do with values that can be C!.... Well, I bet > Mitch will (probably already have) comment on this later. Here is my sense of what the committee means to say. If a careful reading of Basis implies something else, then we need to fix it. The numerical references are from Basis 15. a) The "character" *data type* is capable of representing numbers from 0 to at least 255. (because: 4.0120 says at least 8 bits, 5.1 says char is a subrange of positive numbers, and all the allowed number representations can (and do) represent 0-255 with the low order 8 bits). b) The "implementation-defined character set" tells how that data type is used to represent the symbols in a human-readable character set. That information includes which subset of the possible values representable by the character data type are actually supported, and the correspondence between their numerical values and graphical representations. c) In the absense of any explicit specification to the contrary, the default specification of (b) includes at least the printable ASCII characters with their usual encodings. Item (a) says what you can put in the character data type. Item (b) says what you get from the outside world through KEY and EMIT . > Another common practice which had already been disallowed is: > >
C! CREATE FOO TRUE FOO C! FOO C@ ( n ) On all existing systems I know, the number left on the stack is not a well-formed true flag, and "TRUE =" returns false. What is this example supposed to mean? Mitch.Bradley@Eng.Sun.COM