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| Contributions |
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| 2025-07-02 03:31:11  EricBlake  wrote:
| requestClarification - Wording on ccc prohibits \" inside S\"
| see: https://forth-standard.org/standard/notation#contribution-382
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Table 2.1 in 2.2.3 Parsed text notation states
```
 ccc        a parsed sequence of arbitrary characters, excluding the delimiter character 
```
Meanwhile, S\" states that it parses: ( "ccc<quote>" -- ) 

By a strict reading of the former, a "ccc<quote>" cannot include a " character in the ccc portion of the word, and yet the specification of the latter requires \" to be a supported escape sequence.  A related question affects whether ( and .( can have nested () in comments: https://forth-standard.org/standard/core/p#contribution-380

Maybe all that is needed is adding a normative clarification that some definitions document context-dependent scenarios under which a given character does or does not act as a delimiter character.  Then in the S\" page, document that an odd number of \ followed by " is one such context where " is not a delimiter; and if nested comments are allowed in (, then document that for implementations that allow nested comments, ")" is not a delimiter if it balances out a "(" present earlier in the ccc text.


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| Replies |
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| 2025-07-02 05:14:37  MarcelHendrix  replies:
| proposal - Octal prefix
| see: https://forth-standard.org/proposals/octal-prefix#reply-1449
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iForth uses '&'  (and '^') as a prefix for single characters. It was certainly not my idea -- I guess it came from FysForth. As that was a quite popular Forth in the Netherlands I am sure more Forths uses '&' (and, with a twist,  '^') as single character prefixes.
FORTH> &E  ok
[1]FORTH> emit E ok
FORTH> &^ . 94  ok
FORTH> ^C . 3  ok
FORTH>

-marcel


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| 2025-07-02 11:24:32  ruv  replies:
| requestClarification - Can balanced () be nested inside ( and .( comments?
| see: https://forth-standard.org/standard/core/p#reply-1450
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> which at strict reading would state that a comment cannot contain ")" 

Yes.

> and therefore probably should not contain "(".

No. This character is not considered as a delimiter by the word "`(`".

> in practice, it seems several Forth implementations have ALWAYS supported comments such as "`( n -- n' (n modified by ...) )`",

This is not standard.  The following test case should be passed in a standard Forth system:
```
 t{ ( foo ( bar )  char )  ->  char ) }t
```

>  you can quickly add another layer of () around large blocks of code 

Just introduce another word for comments, which supports nesting. For example, these are encountered in practice `(: ... :)`, `(* ... *)`, `(( ... ))`



>  if "`(`" automatically refills the input buffer

BTW, it does refilling if the input source is a file (according to [11.6.1.0080](https://forth-standard.org/standard/file/p)). In some systems it does refilling when the input source is the user input device too — since when you copy-n-paste a fragment of code or definition from a file to the console, you expect comments to be interpreted the same way as in a file.


> should probably document that it is ambiguous behavior if "(" appears in the "ccc)" word.

This makes some standard programs non-standard. A better way is to use a different (and **longer**) word for nested comments.



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| 2025-07-02 12:09:00  ruv  replies:
| requestClarification - Wording on ccc prohibits \" inside S\"
| see: https://forth-standard.org/standard/notation#reply-1451
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> By a strict reading of the former, a "ccc<quote>" cannot include a `"` character in the `ccc` portion of the word

Yes.

Probably, the glossary entry [6.2.2266 `S\"`](https://forth-standard.org/standard/core/Seq) should introduce and use another notation instead of `ccc`.  Or use a more complicated definition for the delimiter character.