Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!indri!aplcen!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: trigraphs
Message-ID: <10166@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 29 Apr 89 02:57:33 GMT
References: <4623@freja.diku.dk> <12.UUL1.3#5077@aussie.UUCP> <2469@ogccse.ogc.edu> <12840@haddock.ima.isc.com>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 19

In article <12840@haddock.ima.isc.com> karl@haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
>I was under the impression that X3J11 had invented them.

Yes, they were an X3J11 invention.
Similar (but not identical) schemes have been used for a variety of
purposes for a long time, of course.

>which case they made a good argument for why the X3J11 charter generally
>forbade such inventions.)

I don't think they're too bad for their intended purpose of C source file
transmission to sites having only limited character set support (ISO-646).
They would certainly be awful to have to use while writing programs, but
that's not the intention.  I personally don't think the C Standard needed
to address this particular issue at all, and certainly not when so much
public confusion and criticism resulted.  Since the introduction of
trigraphs, there has been further ISO code set standardization that may
have obviated the need for trigraphs, but in case there are limited code-
set environments still in use somewhere trigraphs may yet be of use.