-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Any Prolog language lawyer out there? Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:08:04 +0200 From: Bart Demoen bmd@cs.kuleuven.ac.be Organization: KULeuvenNet Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog References: 41750912.8040102@cs.unipr.it 1098196164.417498@seven.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be slrncnaat8.jkn.jan@ct.xs4all.nl 87acuijutl.fsf@gondolin.bb.bawue.de 1098259920.942884@seven.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be 1098274154.598785@seven.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be 77bbf36a.0410210015.1db2726c@posting.google.com

Mats Carlsson wrote:

...

In the standard "directly" means something like "with no space in between".

That must be wishful thinking on your part. There is no such definition of "directly" in the document.

I should indeed have been more careful.

In principle, everything in the standard has a well-agreed upon meaning. In an attempt to ensure that, page 2 of the standard says in the 3th paragraph of section 3:

# Words and phrases not defined in this glossary are assumed # to have the meaning given in ISO 2382-15; if they do not # appear in ISO 2382-15, then they are assumed to have # their usual meaning.

"directly" is not defined in the ISO Prolog glossary (rest of section 3)

So we should check ISO 2382-15 ... I couldn't get hold of ISO 2382-15 (it is too expensive to acquire just to set this dispute) and if anybody has access to it and can check whether it defines "directly", please let us know.

If it isn't in ISO 2382-15, we must take the usual meaning of "directly". I think (apparently together with GNU Prolog and the makers of http://www.sju.edu/~jhodgson/prolog_proj/framed_spec.html) that in the context as it is used in the explanation of negative numbers, it means

"no spaces [or other stuff] in between"

You might think differently.

Cheers

Bart Demoen