[I'm resending this because I think it was lost since I wasn't
subscribed from this address. Apologies if it appears twice.]
We essentially have
Single-line Block
=========== =====
{<<<} {[[[}
{>>>} {]]]}
{|||} {III}
{'''} {"""}
or 1 field indicator and 8 justifiers (that perform only 4
different justifications).
Why not something like
Single-line Block
=========== =====
[<<<] {<<<}
[>>>] {>>>}
[|||] {|||}
['''] {'''}
which distinguishes the 2 main field types and gives us only the 4
justifiers we need?
I can appreciate the elegance and power of bracketing the fields even
though it screws up one- and two-character fields. And while it's nice
to be down from 3 metacharacters in Perl 5 formats to 1 it doesn't feel
quite worth it when every justification specifier must be doubled.
Having two sets of field delimiters means that if a new justifier is
added we need only come up with one character for it. It also clearly
distinguishes the field type for two-character fields. Neither of these
is a strong argument for changing the existing design but I'm wondering
why the first table above would be easier to learn/remember than the
second.
--
Rick Delaney
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
