"EL" == Eike Lange eike.lange@uni-essen.de writes:
EL> Hi! EL> While discussing about different Pascal-styles for EL> the pindent-program there came up a question my books EL> can't answer:
EL> How are the different styles called, EL> which one can use for coding:
EL> array [1..3] <===> array (.1..3.) EL> and EL> { comment } <===> (* Comment *)
EL> BTW: EL> Why did these styles came up? EL> Is one of them "old-fashioned"?
Pascal was first implemented on a CDC 6600 computer. Characters were coded on 6 bits, and thus there were only 64 different characters, including end-of-line. There were no square brackets, no circumflex, but there were curly brackets, an up arrow and a « not equal » operator. Thus, {} is as old as the first implementation, but [] is less old.
^ for pointers and <> for comparison are newer than the old characters, which no longer exist on most existing character codes.
Olivier Lecarme