Talk:Stropping (syntax)

The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

This article was nominated for deletion on 4 October 2008. The result of the discussion was Withdrawn.

Computing: Software / CompSci Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article is supported by WikiProject Software (assessed as Low-importance).

This article is supported by WikiProject Computer science (assessed as Low-importance).

Things you can help WikiProject Computer science with:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests :
- Requested articles/Applied arts and sciences/Computer science, computing, and Internet
Cleanup :
- Computer science articles needing attention
- Computer science articles needing expert attention
Copyedit :
- Computing
Expand :
- Computer science
Infobox :
- Computer science articles without infoboxes
Maintain :
- Timeline of computing 2020–present
Photo :
- Find pictures for the biographies of computer scientists (see List of computer scientists)
- Computing articles needing images
Stubs :
- Computer science stubs
Unreferenced :
- WikiProject Computer science/Unreferenced BLPs
Project-related :
- Tag all relevant articles in Category:Computer science and sub-categories with {{WikiProject Computer science}}

What is stropping?

A kind of syntax highlighting?
Merely a concrete syntax for a formal language's syntax?
Something that should be discussed in the escape character article?

Would a Algol68 parser complain about any of the following two programs?

mode xint = int;
xint sum sq:=0;
for i while
  sum sq≠70×70
do
  sum sq+:=i↑2
od

mode xint = int;
xint sum sq:=0;
for i while
  sum sq≠70×70
do
  sum sq+:=i↑2
od

--Abdull (talk) 23:00, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is stropping?

A hardware representation for the program text. The reply to the question "how do I type begin on my ASR-33".

Would an ALGOL 68 parser complain about these two programs

The first program wouldn't compile, "begin" is not the same as "begin". If it were prefixed by ".pr res .pr" then "begin" would be a valid spelling of "begin", but "xint" would still not be a correct spelling of "xint".
The second program would be valid if you had a system that let you type bold text (and a compiler that could read bold text). Most people didn't.

HughesJohn (talk) 09:38, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm just new to the term, but doesn't Perl's use of "sigils" qualify as stropping? It flags variables vs language constructs, so there are no "reserved word" restrictions on what you can name your variables, etc. It's optional on functions, though, which may change things. Clsn (talk) 20:55, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

More examples

Postscript uses / in the opposite sense, to indicate names that are not to be interpreted. Plain TeX uses \ to indicate control sequences, to separate them from ordinary text. Should we have more examples? Gah4 (talk) 14:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cf. shell syntax

We may want to mention the related situation in the shell, in which commands that match keywords can be called by quoting them. This is in effect the inverse of stropping: When a clash is possible, the non-keyword must be marked. Examples:

 $ if     # Interpreted as keyword
 $ 'if'   # Interpreted as command
 $ \if    # Interpreted as command
 $ i\f    # Interpreted as command

–Jérôme (talk) 13:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]