Dimensional Measuring Interface
Standard
Standard Improvement Request
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SIR No. 97-46 DMIS Release 3.0 SIR Type Enhancement Severity Other Status Resolved Date Submitted August 12 1997 Date Validated August 12 1997 Date In Process Date Referred Date Vote Pending Date Closed April 1 1998 Action Clarifications Submitted By Thomas Kramer NIST Room B-124, Bldg. 220 Gaithersburg MD 20899 USA Phone: (301)975-3518 Fax: (301)990-9688 kramer@cme.nist.gov |
Problem Topic
Sect.2.2.6: Clarification in "space" char.
Problem Description
Page 11, section 2.6.6 says "... spaces have no significance in DMIS."
There are two problems with this.
The first problem is that it does not say what ASCII character or characters are intended by the word "spaces". Usually, "space" means ASCII 32. That should be made explicit. Also, in several other languages, the tab character (ASCII 9) is treated the same way spaces are treated. If this is intended, it should be made explicit.
The second problem is that, taken literally, "spaces have no significance"
makes parsing much more difficult. For example:
1. "$ $" is a valid comment delimiter.
2. A space might occur between the carriage return and line feed at the end
of a line.
3. Spaces might occur inside keywords, labels, numbers, etc.
It would make parsing easier and reading by humans easier if spaces were allowed only between tokens of the language: DMIS words, labels, variable names, numbers, and delimiters.
References
None
Related SIRs
None
Suggested Resolution
Delete the last paragraph of section 2.6.6 and reword the first paragraph
as three paragraphs, as follows:
Blank lines have no significance in DMIS.
Spaces (ASCII 32) and tabs (ASCII 9) may be used:
- between tokens of the language (DMIS words, labels, variable names,
numbers, and delimiters),
- inside text strings passed in TEXT, FILNAM, and other statements using
'text'.
- inside comments.
Spaces and tabs may not be used anywhere else. Spaces and tabs have no
significance where they are correctly used, except in text strings.
Blank lines, spaces, and tabs may aid clarity in manual programming or analysis, but they are ignored by postprocessors in the translation of a DMIS file (except spaces and tabs in text strings). For example:
Support Documentation
None
Resolution
Warning!!
The following statement is only a resolution to a Standard Improvement Request (SIR) and is NOT part of the current DMIS standard, nor is it guaranteed to become part of the next revision of the DMIS standard even if voted and accepted by the DMIS National Standards Committee. This resolution is tentative because it may not be incorporated into the next version of the standard, it could be changed prior to the next release, or it could be changed as the result of the "public review and comment" period required for the next version of the standard. If you choose to use this tentative resolution, you do so at your own risk since at this time it is not part of the DMIS standard.
Attachments
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Notes
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