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Re: [ddlm-group] String concatenation operator in CIF2. .
- To: ddlm-group <ddlm-group@iucr.org>
- Subject: Re: [ddlm-group] String concatenation operator in CIF2. .
- From: "Bollinger, John C" <John.Bollinger@STJUDE.ORG>
- Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 11:21:56 -0500
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- In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimq3EvbmB7SSz1phMNxuLk7srvyF2eUPCB=n1YS@mail.gmail.com>
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On Thursday, October 14, 2010 7:48 AM, James Hester wrote: >There are three separate issues: (1) do we want a string concatenation >operator? (2) If so, what is the grammar for this operator (3) what >character(s) will be used for this operator? [...] >Regarding the particular characters to use to represent concatenation: >'+' is a poor choice given its possible uses as a datavalue in its own >right, and I find that '_' is a little unintuitive and unnecessarily >overloads underscore. Note that there is no reason to limit ourselves >to a single character as we expect this operator to be used very >sparingly: we can use a digraph or trigraph if we so desire, >especially if it makes the meaning clearer to a naive user. If a concatenation operator is adopted, then I agree with Simon that it should be something that is not legal as a whitespace-delimited data value. (Ideally, not in CIF1, either.) I would prefer that it not be legal even as the leading character(s) of a whitespace-delimited data value. Without departing from the allowed ASCII characters, the lone underscore is the only viable string I see that meets all those criteria. I don't so much mind '//' as a concatenation operator, except that it must then be made a reserved word, and maybe even a reserved prefix. At least such a reservation is less likely to be a problem than reservation of '+' would be, but I don't see that choice as much more intuitive to the average user than '_'. Regards, John -- John C. Bollinger, Ph.D. Department of Structural Biology St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Email Disclaimer: www.stjude.org/emaildisclaimer _______________________________________________ ddlm-group mailing list ddlm-group@iucr.org http://scripts.iucr.org/mailman/listinfo/ddlm-group
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