Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!agate!ucbvax!decwrl!decvax!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: ANSI C token set (including $ and @)
Message-ID: <11343@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Date: 5 Jan 89 01:46:30 GMT
References: <1844@zell.cs.vu.nl> <9244@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 27

Let's see if I've got this straight yet.

o  `$' is required to scan as a separate pp-token, despite existing practice
   making it an optional identifier-character.

o  When converting pp-tokens to tokens, an implementation is free to merge
   {foo}{$}{bar} into a single token {foo$bar}.  (I'm guessing on this one.)

o  But, since macro expansion happens first, it is {foo}, and not {foo$bar},
   that is subject to macro replacement, even if the above is true.

o  Hence, certain features of DEC and APOLLO implementations cannot be
   conforming.

o  DEC and APOLLO, through their representatives on X3J11, are aware of the
   above and accept it.  Their ANSI C implementations, if any, will not use
   `$' in identifiers.

o  Non-English letters, which are clearly not usable in a strictly conforming
   program, are in fact not usable in *any* conforming program, for the same
   reasons that apply to `$'.

o  The international community is aware of this and accepts it.

How much of the above is correct?

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint