[Pika-dev] new code: character special names

[Jose A. Ortega Ruiz]

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happy new year!

i've spent some time of my holidays writing a little bit of code for
pika. more concretely (and following tom's suggestion), i've extended
the special character names handled by read and write: all usual names
(newline, return, page, etc.) plus standard ASCII names are included
(in fact, the same set as systas').

i've also spent sometime with tla 1.2 and i've created a new _signed_[1]
archive with the following coordinates:

address@hidden
  http://tao.uab.es/jao/archives/2004

the above-mentioned code corresponds to revision
scm--devo--0.1--patch-1.

some comments on the code:

- - i've tried to hide away all details of char representation and name
  handling inside reps/char-imp.c (for instance, avoiding explicit bit
  twiddling in lexer.c, and things like that.)

- - i've noticed that pointer arguments are seldom checked for
  non-nullness: i've used now and then invariant(arg != 0) in my new
  functions, but maybe not checking is a design issue?

- - i've also missed the (consistent) use of 'const' qualifiers for
  pointer parameters of functions (what the c++ people call
  const-correctness). from my previous experience, a rigorous use of
  'const' improves the code's consistency and 'self-documentedness'.
  i've already used it in my pika hacks, but of course it must be a
  shared policy to be of any use. if you think it's worth the effort,
  i volunteer to review the current pika source tree to make it
  'const-correct'. but, again, maybe i am missing some design issue...

- - tom, i think my changes are quite self-explanatory, but if you want
  me to explain them in more detail to save you time, just ask! :).
  also, please let me know if the archive change poses any problem
  (the old one is still alive, btw).

cheers,
jao

Footnotes: 
[1]  My public key is (i'm signing this message, too):

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- -- 
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- -Arthur C Clarke, science fiction writer (1917- )
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