operator characters
- To: mathgroup at yoda.physics.unc.edu
- Subject: operator characters
- From: madler at cco.caltech.edu (Mark Adler)
- Date: 10 May 1994 16:46:04 GMT
Mathematica's parsing of symbols is claimed to be simple. There are operator characters and text characters, where the latter are defined as any character that is not the former. So, what I'd like is the definitive list of operator characters. Should I use those characters in the special forms list in appendix A? What characters other than space qualify as a space? What I'd really like is a Mathematica built-in function that tests for an operator character (OperatorQ?). Then if Mathematica ever extends or contracts its set of operator characters, I wouldn't have to worry about it. (This is for a simple parser as part of a $PreRead function.) In the meantime though, I'd like to see the definitive list. I could conclude from another part of appendix A that the operators are any ASCII printable character that's not a letter, digit, or $. However, I know that that's not complete, since tab can be a space. So what else is missing? Carriage return? Line feed? Backspace maybe? Mark Adler madler at cco.caltech.edu