Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!tness7!killer!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mandrill!gatech!udel!rochester!cornell!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: trigraphs in X3J11
Message-ID: <1054@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jun 88 07:23:02 GMT
References: <1988May25.212902.1904@utzoo.uucp> <5215@ico.ISC.COM>, <343@pyuxf.UUCP>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 12

In article <343@pyuxf.UUCP>, boby@pyuxf.UUCP (robert yaeger) writes:
> Well just to let you know, trigraphs are indeed needed in the good ol' USA.
> Try writing MVS/c programs using a 3270! Fortunately, the only trigraphs
> needed are the ??( and ??) ( ie., [ and ] ). 

The irony of this is that the manufacturer's (IBM's) character set (EBCDIC)
*does* include codes for "[" and "]", it's just that a lot of their
equipment doesn't quite support their own character set.

The pre-ANSI method used in the SAS C compiler ("(|" for "[" and
"|)" for "]") strikes me as far more readable, and neither combination
is otherwise legal C.