Re: [Chicken-users] Backslash-symbol changed from \ to \\ between 4.5.0 and 4.6.0

[Peter Bex]

On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 06:45:05PM -0500, Peter Danenberg wrote:
> Quoth Peter Danenberg on Pungenday, the 59th of Bureaucracy:
> > [C]an we revert to the old behaviour, or can I revert locally by
> > using `set-read-syntax!'?
> 
> I didn't see any mention of this change to the reader in NEWS; was it
> intentional?

There's been some work done on reading escaped/quoted literals to
improve our SRFI-88 support (see ticket #322).  It looks like the
preliminary changes (the ticket hasn't been closed yet) have
(accidentally?) been integrated:

Chicken 4.5.0:

#;1> '|foo|:
foo
#;2> 
Error: unbound variable: :

Chicken 4.6.0:
#;1> '|foo|:
foo:

I think the backslash shouldn't have any special meaning except in
quoted symbols.  AFAIK there's nothing in R5RS to support this, but then
there's nothing in R5RS to support a backslash in symbols at all..
I can't find anything about this in R6RS either.  I hope the WG1 will
straighten this out ;)

Cheers,
Peter
-- 
http://sjamaan.ath.cx
--
"The process of preparing programs for a digital computer
 is especially attractive, not only because it can be economically
 and scientifically rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic
 experience much like composing poetry or music."
                                                        -- Donald Knuth