Subject: Re: Revisiting split-sequence and patterns From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 07:48:30 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3215922508819020@naggum.net> * Jeff Greif | Sometimes the tokens might be enclosed like this `some token' or [other | token] or {there exists this token}. The reason this is out of place is that these things naturally nest. | It may also be useful to specify the start and end delimiters in matching | pairs, so that "SELECT * FROM LISPERS WHERE NAME = 'Erik Naggum'" could | be treated as a single token in some circumstances where both single and | double-quote were allowed as multiple-escape delimiters, but starting | with double-quote meant you have to end with double-quote, and other | delimiting characters appearing inside the double quotes would not be | escapes. I already covered that. Please have another look: If there be more patterns of syntax design, another one would involve escaping a whole sequence of characters so they revert from (potentially) special to normal interpretation, using a single special character at --> BOTH ENDS of the sequence, and escaping that character and the escaping character inside the sequence with the same character that does this for a single character. All the escaping characters are discarded from the extracted token. Call this the multiple-escape mechanism. /// -- The past is not more important than the future, despite what your culture has taught you. Your future observations, conclusions, and beliefs are more important to you than those in your past ever will be. The world is changing so fast the balance between the past and the future has shifted.