Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 01:53:08 -0500 (CDT) From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: brackets/braces/parens/brokets Message-ID: <14706.44372.11991.4679@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <bulk.38030.20000716223223@hub.freebsd.org> References: <bulk.38030.20000716223223@hub.freebsd.org>
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> Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 14:20:18 +0930
> From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
> Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/share/man/man9 style.9
>
> On Sunday, 16 July 2000 at 22:54:10 -0400, Christopher Masto wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 17, 2000 at 11:31:09AM +0930, Greg Lehey wrote:
> >> For me, brackets are '(' and ')'. '[' and ']' are square brackets,
> >> and '<' and '>' are angle brackets. '{' and '}' are braces. I'm sure
> >> I'm not alone, and there are probably other naming conventions for
> >> these symbols. It would make sense to spell out what the man page
> >> means.
> >
> > A possibly unambigous set of terms?:
> >
> > '(' and ')': parenthesis
> > '[' and ']': square brackets
> > '<' and '>': angle brackets
> > '{' and '}': curly braces
> >
> > When someone says "put brackets around that", I'm also unsure what
> > they meant, because I've seen the word used for all four sets of
> > characters. Same thing with "braces". There are probably some
> > hideously officious ISO names for these.
>
> I don't really care which we end up with, as long as we define them
> somewhere to avoid confusion. But it sounds good, modulo the typo
> that Chris picked up. I think I'd leave out "curly", too: we don't
> have any other type of brace.
The problem with leaving out the "curly" is that the *reader* may
think that "braces" means something other than "curly braces". If
you're willing to do that, there are unique nouns for each pair:
'()': parens (or parentheses)
'[]': brackets
'{}': braces
'<>': brokets
But that just reintroduces all the ambiguity problems again. To be
absolutely clear, chose one noun and use different adjectives:
'()': "round brackets"
'[]': "square brackets"
'{}': "curly brackets"
'<>': "angle brackets"
They could also be "braces" instead of "brackets", but that usage
seems uncommon for everything but curly braces.
<mike
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