[PATCH] Identifiers with '?'

[Ian Parker]

In article <8gep52$ik$1 at nnrp1.deja.com>, Uwe Zessin <zessin at my-deja.com>
writes
>In article <m366s5mylb.fsf at atrus.jesus.cam.ac.uk>,
>  Michael Hudson <mwh21 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
>> nospam.newton at gmx.li (Philip 'Yes, that's my address' Newton) writes:
>>
>> > On 21 May 2000 20:33:07 +0100, Michael Hudson <mwh21 at cam.ac.uk>
>wrote:
>> >
>> > >Tee hee. I have on my machine built (in the last few days) a Python
>> > >that allows one to use identifiers containing +, *, !, ?, & and @.
>> > >This means you have to space your operators properly, but is IMHO
>> > >quite a cool mod.  I can clean it up and post the patch for that if
>> > >anyone's interested...
>> >
>> > Why not add '$' to that to cater to people from the VMS (or even
>> > BASIC) world? SYS$LOGICAL and all that (or whatever they look like).
>>
>> Easy as pie:
>>
>> [mwh21 at atrus build-aug]$ ./python
>> Python 1.6a2 (#16, May 23 2000, 09:54:00)  [GCC 2.95.2 19991024
>(release)] on linux2
>> Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>> Copyright 1995-2000 Corporation for National Research Initiatives
>(CNRI)
>> >>> sys$logical = 1
>> >>> sys$logical
>> 1
>
>That would be a nice feature, because the $ is usually used in system-
>defined names on OpenVMS. Can we ask (cry at) Guido to allow $s in
>names? I don't want to put that into the OpenVMS port now and risk
>an incompatibility if he decides to give the $ a different meaning
>later.
>
>--
>Uwe Zessin
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.

I second that (without implying, in any way, a vote). I'd certainly like
to be able to use the $ on vms python.  For me $ and _ seem natural
characters to have in names, whereas I'd probably be horrified if, say,
! or ~ were allowed.   Odd really.

-- 
Ian Parker