I like Edward Jaffe's proposal for a SYMCASE(any|asis) functionally
very much, except that the keyword value 'asis' seems to me to have
unfortunate connotations in this context; and I should prefer to see
SYMCASE(any|match) implemented instead, without changing EJ's
functional specifications.
My earlier post was incorrect for vanilla version 1.6 of the HLASM.
As a practical matter, for example,
|MySym DC . . .
and its case variants all get assembled, silently, as
|MYSYYM DC . . .
My interest in in these issues has a very different motivation from
EJ's. I am interested in case-insensitivity and in supporting what I
call Case-Insensitive Disambiguating Truncations (CIDTs), which I can
illustrate for the keyword set
{start, stop, swerve}.
Putting them into lexicographic sequence and noting and recording the
leftmost position in which each differs from its predecesssor and/or
successor yields 'sta', 'sto', and 'sw' as the minimal disambiguating
truncations of these keywords, so that any of
'sta'|'star'|'start' and their case variants can be recognized as
instances of 'start',
'sto'|'stop' and their case variants can be recognized as instances of 'stop',
'sw'|'swe'|'swer'|'swerv'|'swerve' and their case variants can be
recognized as instances of 'swerve', and
's' goes unrecognized because its does not disambiguate these three
values. My notion, expressed here before, is that one should
recognize whatever can be deciphered unambiguously; truncations and
case variants should be recognized wherever they can be; and it is
neither very difficult nor very time-consuming to do so once and for
all in table-driven fashion. .
Paul Gilmartin's view that departures from ALL-CAPS do and will
produce 'chaos and instability' seems to me to be overdrawn. My own
practice is to use mixed, chiefly lower, case in all but a few
situations, macro names, BIF names---I write D2A not d2a---and the
like; and I have not found doing so problematic.
Peter Relson, with whom I sometimes disagree, has here again made the
important point. Readability is crucial, and it need not be
sacrificed on the altar of 'stability'.
John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
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John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA
