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From gpc-owner@gnu.de  Wed Jan 15 03:05:18 2003
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From: Tom Schneider <toms@ncifcrf.gov>
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Subject: Re: Upper/lower case in identifiers
In-Reply-To: <E18YIYg-0005X7-00@adele.gerwinski.de> from "gpc-owner@gnu.de" at "Jan 14, 2003 05:20:14 am"
To: gpc@gnu.de (gpc)
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 21:03:38 -0500 (EST)
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Frank:

> > ...  So if I want to cut and paste to search for the name in
> > my program, it fails.
> 
> I didn't like this as well, and that's exactly why I've brought up
> the issue.

Oh good!

> > Why not take the first [occurrence] of a variable as the name to use on
> > all output?
> 
> The first, or the most recent one, that's still a question. After
> some experimenting, there seem to be points for both ways. I'm
> implementing the latter now (though it should be easy to change).
> So, e.g.:
> 
> program Baz;
> 
> procedure Foo;
> var BaR: Integer;
> begin
> end;
> 
> begin
>   WriteLn (bar)
> end.
> 
> will complain about an unknown identifier `bar', not `BaR' ...

I would strongly vote for using the first occurrence because that is
the one which is the definition!  If one is disciplined, then all
later cases should follow the definition!

> > Note:  only Germans like to capitalize all nouns!
> 
> I know, and that's not the reason why this rule was introduced (long
> ago). Rather it was to avoid asmname conflicts with libc routines
> etc. -- see, e.g., Pierre's mail for detailed explanations.

Oh.  I think that you should either:

1. ignore the conflicts and let the user deal with them.
Warn the user that a conflict has occurred.

or

2. protect the user from such conflicts so they never have to deal
with them.

I want to be able to write 'vanilla flavor' Pascal programs that will
work on many compilers.  I have great hope that GPC is the end-all
solution, but even so it is nice to allow my programs to work on other
compilers.  So I do not want to be forced to change variable names
because of conflicts specific to the internal workings of a particular
compiler.  For example, the fact that I cannot name a procedure 'main'
on the Sun compiler is rather obnoxious - I was forced to rename all
my 'main' procedures to 'themain', and even have a tool for modifying
Pascal programs to make such variable-name switches:

http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/delila/worcha.html

... written in vanilla Pascal of course!

Tom

  Dr. Thomas D. Schneider
  National Cancer Institute
  Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology
  Frederick, Maryland  21702-1201
  toms@ncifcrf.gov
  permanent email: toms@alum.mit.edu (use only if first address fails)
  http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/

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