Re: should generate-symbol use "special" characters?
Vincent Manis (he/him) 27 Jan 2025 23:49 UTC
On 2025-01-27 15:19, Per Bothner wrote:
> Perhaps require (or at least recommend) that generate-symbol contain
> at least
> one character that is neither an <initial> or a <subsequent>?
> I.e. at least one character that can only be written with an <inline
> hex escape>
> or a <mnemonic escape> or <whitespace>? (I suggest a space.)
I support this SRFI.
I'm quite happy with leaving the name implementation-defined (as long as
write or display includes a recognizable rendition of the pretty-name).
If there is a requirement for a non-identifier character, I would oppose
the space, as (misguided) use of display would produce misleading
output, but I don't see a need for it. I've already stated elsewhere
that if I were to implement generate-symbol, I'd use UUIDs (and possibly
a counter), and it would be almost impossible to enter a similar symbol
manually.
I haven't looked at the sample implementation, but since it uses
/dev/random, a note mentioning the Windows library routine rand_s, which
is (supposedly) similar, would not go awry.
-- vincent