Re: Obsolete characters

From: John Burger (john@mitre.org)
Date: Fri Jan 16 2009 - 14:39:46 CST

  • Next message: Leo Broukhis: "Re: Obsolete characters"

    Asmus Freytag wrote:

    > Mark Davis wrote:
    >
    >> 1. I have an UTC action to update UTR#39, which provides for sets
    >> of characters that people may want to exclude from identifiers.
    >> It has an 'archaic' category, and I need to update the contents.
    >>
    >
    > The Latin micro sign does not belong on an "obsolete" list. In an
    > identifier context you need to handle it by mapping it to Greek micro,
    > but you have to be realistic that many keyboards will support one and
    > not the other.

    I've just been cleaning up some scientific texts from multiple
    sources. MICRO SIGN (U+00B5) and GREEK SMALL LETTER MU (U+03BC) seem
    to be used quite interchangeably in journal articles, etc.

    As an example of the wide usage of both, "µm" (using micro in the
    symbol for "micrometer" or "microMole") has about 18 million Google
    hits, while "μm" (using mu) has about 8 million.

    Not sure what that says about likely usage in identifiers, but FYI.

    - John D. Burger
       MITRE



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