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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!tektronix!cae780!daniels
From: daniels@cae780.TEK.COM (Scott Daniels)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,net.sources
Subject: Re: binary radix (+ some source)
Message-ID: <3801@cae780.TEK.COM>
Date: Wed, 22-Apr-87 18:08:32 EST
Article-I.D.: cae780.3801
Posted: Wed Apr 22 18:08:32 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Apr-87 06:02:42 EST
References: <213@pyuxe.UUCP> <710@brl-sem.ARPA> <422@ivax.doc.ic.ac.uk> <2970@pegasus.UUCP> <581@csun.UUCP> <2924@well.UUCP>
Reply-To: daniels@cae780.UUCP (Scott Daniels)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Santa Clara, Ca.
Lines: 19
Keywords: octal, hex, binary
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.c:1856 net.sources:4357

In article <2924@well.UUCP> physh@well.UUCP (JonPhysh Foreman) writes:
>... Format for arbitrary bases: 0f<base>.<number> 

During an investigation for arbitrary base notations (in SAIL, an 
ALGOL-holics language), I had proposed: '<char>.<number> , where <char> 
is the character for radix-1 (a must-be-representable character).  
A C-like version might be: .<char>.number.
Thus .7.xxx is octal, .1.xxx is binary, .F.xxx is hex, .2.xxx is trinary,
and .0.xxx is unary (although it is not clear whether 0 is .0.0 or .0.).
The advantage of this representation is that it is radix-independent 
(assuming there is a well-defined mapping of characters to digits); you
may unambiguously write a number down whatever the default radix.

	FROM:   Scott Daniels, Tektronix CAE
		5302 Betsy Ross Drive, Santa Clara, CA  95054
	UUCP: daniels@cae780.UUCP (Scott Daniels)
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