macro to control conditional compilation based on date

[Michael Wojcik]

Nope. Must be differences in our readers. I'm using xpdf, you're using
acroread.

But Vlad seems to be using acroread (7) as well. Maybe they mucked
that up since your version?

Huh. Wierd.

This was discussed at least as recently as last December, when Larry
Jones noted that at least some versions of the PDF include "a very
think space between the two underscores" for readability purposes.[1]

It's possible that different readers - including different versions
of Acrobeast Reaver - handle that "very thin space" character
differently for searching and copying purposes. Some may treat it as
a space when reducing to ASCII, and others may treat it as
typographical leading[2] and ignore it.

It's also possible that ANSI has played around with the PDF contents
in ways that don't alter the wording of the standard, so that
different versions of the document exist. Though my copy of ISO/IEC
9899-1999(E), ANSI PDF version, downloaded 2005-10-06 (the ANSI store
inserts purchase information onto the cover page of downloaded PDFs)
matches what Al, Pete, and Mark reported.

My copy of the N1124 PDF, on the other hand, doesn't find "__"
anywhere - all the double-underscores have the thin-leading insertion.


1. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c/msg/38e222522db1d348
2. That's "leading" as in the soft metal, in other words, not as in
"coming in front".

 

[CBFalconer]

Nope. Must be differences in our readers. I'm using xpdf, you're using
acroread.

But Vlad seems to be using acroread (7) as well. Maybe they mucked
that up since your version?

Huh. Wierd.

This was discussed at least as recently as last December, when Larry
Jones noted that at least some versions of the PDF include "a very
think space between the two underscores" for readability purposes.[1]

It's possible that different readers - including different versions
of Acrobeast Reaver - handle that "very thin space" character
differently for searching and copying purposes. Some may treat it as
a space when reducing to ASCII, and others may treat it as
typographical leading[2] and ignore it.

It's also possible that ANSI has played around with the PDF contents
in ways that don't alter the wording of the standard, so that
different versions of the document exist. Though my copy of ISO/IEC
9899-1999(E), ANSI PDF version, downloaded 2005-10-06 (the ANSI store
inserts purchase information onto the cover page of downloaded PDFs)
matches what Al, Pete, and Mark reported.

My copy of the N1124 PDF, on the other hand, doesn't find "__"
anywhere - all the double-underscores have the thin-leading insertion.

I downloaded mine last June 5th, and acrowhatzit 4.05 found the
double leading underscores without problem. However they display
with blank space between them, leading and trailing.

However I just tried foxrd on the same file, with the same search.
Not found!

--
"If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use
the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on
"show options" at the top of the article, then click on the
"Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson
More details at: <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/>
Also see <http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/>

 

[Richard Bos]

It's possible that different readers - including different versions
of Acrobeast Reaver - handle that "very thin space" character
differently for searching and copying purposes. Some may treat it as
a space when reducing to ASCII, and others may treat it as
typographical leading[2] and ignore it.

2. That's "leading" as in the soft metal, in other words, not as in
"coming in front".

No, that's "spacing" as in the soft metal. "Leading" is between lines.

Richard

 

[Mark McIntyre]

It's possible that different readers - including different versions
of Acrobeast Reaver - handle that "very thin space" character
differently for searching and copying purposes. Some may treat it as
a space when reducing to ASCII, and others may treat it as
typographical leading[2] and ignore it.

2. That's "leading" as in the soft metal, in other words, not as in
"coming in front".

No, that's "spacing" as in the soft metal. [/QUOTE]

The word you're searching for is "kerning".

"Leading" is between lines.

It is however still pronounced "ledding".

Mark McIntyre

 

[Richard Bos]

It's possible that different readers - including different versions
of Acrobeast Reaver - handle that "very thin space" character
differently for searching and copying purposes. Some may treat it as
a space when reducing to ASCII, and others may treat it as
typographical leading[2] and ignore it.

2. That's "leading" as in the soft metal, in other words, not as in
"coming in front".

No, that's "spacing" as in the soft metal.

The word you're searching for is "kerning".[/QUOTE]

Kerning is a special case of spacing. Kerning is spacing inserted (or
removed; in olden days, that was obviously impossible, so letters had to
be designed with optimally kerned width, and the few couples where less
would've been better ignored) to make the space between letters
optically, as opposed to geometrically, even.
Spacing in general is done for all kind of reasons; to set a table, or
to make a word s t a n d o u t , for example. Or, as in this case, to
make sure that two glyphs don't run into one another.

It is however still pronounced "ledding".

Certainly.

Richard

 

[Ivanna Pee]

Anyone out there ever come across a preprocessor macro that compares an
argument value against the predefined __DATE__ macro in order to
control conditional compilation based on date.

Something along the lines of...

# define DateLaterThan(x) ...

that could be used for things like

#if DateLaterThan("Jun 15 2006")
#error The following debug code can be deleted now
#end


Would be pretty handy to be able to leave a forceful reminder in souce
code to prompt cleanup of ugly quick fixes, tempory diagnostics etc.
etc. rather than passive TODO/FIXME type comment tags.

I've seen this accomplished through clever use of the makefile/make
utility.

 

[Micah Cowan]

On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:10:30 GMT, in comp.lang.c ,

(e-mail address removed) (Michael Wojcik) wrote:

It's possible that different readers - including different versions
of Acrobeast Reaver - handle that "very thin space" character
differently for searching and copying purposes. Some may treat it as
a space when reducing to ASCII, and others may treat it as
typographical leading[2] and ignore it.

2. That's "leading" as in the soft metal, in other words, not as in
"coming in front".

No, that's "spacing" as in the soft metal.

The word you're searching for is "kerning".

Kerning is a special case of spacing. Kerning is spacing inserted (or
removed; in olden days, that was obviously impossible, so letters had to
be designed with optimally kerned width, and the few couples where less
would've been better ignored) to make the space between letters
optically, as opposed to geometrically, even.
Spacing in general is done for all kind of reasons; to set a table, or
to make a word s t a n d o u t , for example. Or, as in this case, to
make sure that two glyphs don't run into one another.

(Dare I continue this off-topic thread? But it's one of my favorite
topics...)

Kerning /was/ done with metal type, by notching the metal. For
instance, in a "T", the arms would sometimes be made to stick out a
bit from the metal, so that the side was not straight, and a lowercase
a (for example) could be made to sit closer inside a bit. Of course,
most (but not all) automated typesetting machines didn't handle type
of this sort. The bit of the T that stuck out was called a "kern".

Of course, I'm sure it was much easier to achieve with the advent of
photographic typesetting. For my part, I'm happy to have grown up
after digital typesetting has matured past a lot of its early
quirks. Though I have strong feelings regarding the lack of support
for quality typesetting features in most available APIs and OSses.

 

[Michael Wojcik]

Some may treat it as
a space when reducing to ASCII, and others may treat it as
typographical leading[2] and ignore it.

2. That's "leading" as in the soft metal, in other words, not as in
"coming in front".

No, that's "spacing" as in the soft metal. "Leading" is between lines.

Thanks for the correction; I clearly need to review my typography.

Anyway, the main point remains that it's possible some PDF readers
will treat that "very thin space" as typographical spacing and not
as a space character.

 

[Al Balmer]

I've seen this accomplished through clever use of the makefile/make
utility.

You've seen *what* accomplished? Putting the newsgroup name in square
brackets? If you must post from Google, at least learn how to do it
properly. Eliding signature blocks would be a start.