Re: LilyPond identifier restrictions

[Urs Liska]

Am 14.06.2013 14:59, schrieb David Kastrup:

Richard Shann <address@hidden> writes:

On Fri, 2013-06-14 at 11:52 +0200, David Kastrup wrote:

Urs Liska <address@hidden> writes:

Maybe it's obvious but I always wondered why LilyPond identifiers are
so restricted to [a-zA-Z] characters.

They aren't.

\version "2.16"

Mvmnt1Voice1 = {
 a b c
}
 
\score { 
 \Mvmnt1Voice1
}

\version "2.16"

Vafþrúðnismál = {
  a b c
}

\score {
  \Vafþrúðnismál
}

GNU LilyPond 2.16.0
Processing `ddd.ly'
Parsing...
Interpreting music...
Preprocessing graphical objects...
Finding the ideal number of pages...
Fitting music on 1 page...
Drawing systems...
Layout output to `ddd.ps'...
Converting to `./ddd.pdf'...
Success: compilation successfully completed


I did not claim that everything in the world can be an identifier, but
clearly more than [a-zA-Z].

So what is the definition of allowed characters then?

http://www.lilypond.org/doc/v2.16/Documentation/notation/file-structure.html says:
"The name of a variable should have alphabetic characters only; no numbers, underscores or dashes."

And I think I'm not alone with the instant reaction: "Hey, alphabetic character, and not even numbers, this surely evaluates to [a-zA_Z]"

Urs