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ID Category Severity Type Date Submitted Last Update
0001086 [1003.1(2016/18)/Issue7+TC2] Shell and Utilities Editorial Clarification Requested 2016-10-12 09:49 2018-04-12 16:04
Reporter Mark_Galeck View Status public  
Assigned To
Priority normal Resolution Rejected  
Status Closed  
Name Mark Galeck
Organization
User Reference
Section 2.3 Token Recognition
Page Number 2347-2348
Line Number 74742-74755
Interp Status ---
Final Accepted Text
Summary 0001086: Token "Recognition" is misleading and the usage of "word" in that section should be clarified.
Description In the section heading "Token Recognition", the verb "recognize" is clearly used with meaning 4 in Wiktionary: "To realize or discover the nature of something". If not, there is not another meaning (at least not in Wiktionary) which is more applicable.

On the other hand, if you look at the section on Shell Grammar, you see what it does for tokens, is it finds "identifiers" for them. The verb "identify" here is used in meaning 1: "To establish the identity of something".

So we can see that the two meanings are essentially the same, either completely the same or so close that the confusion between "Recognition" and "Identifiers" is inevitable.

In fact, the section "Token Recognition" is not about "finding identifiers" at all.

This section does two things:
1. (Mainly) Token Separation (not Recognition)
2. (Secondary) Decide if a token is "operator" or "word".

However, the "word" as used in Section 2.3, is not the same as "WORD" in the sense of Shell Grammar. Given that these two are in closely related sections on token processing, I think the potential for misleading the reader is great.
Desired Action Change the section 2.3 name from "Token Recognition" to "Token Separation", or "Delimiting of Tokens".

Before the rules in section 2.3, include the paragraph:

In addition to finding beginnings and ends of tokens, this section also classifies tokens as operators or non-operators ("words").
Tags No tags attached.
Attached Files

- Relationships
related to 0001100Closed Rewrite of Section 2.10 Shell Grammar, of the Shell Standard, to fix previous reports, fix new issues, and improve presentation. 

-  Notes
(0003943)
kre (reporter)
2018-03-28 03:25

While I certainly have no objection to making things clearer, I
think this one is perhaps going overboard (ie: is unnecessary).

That is, given the input
    abc;def;ghi
once token recognition is done we know that "abc" ";" "def" ";" and "ghi"
are the tokens - to me this is exactly "discovering the true nature of
something" (that thing being the tokens that exist in the input).

None of this says anything about identifying any meaning in any of those
tokens, so I see no confusion at all with any text that talks about
identifying anything - nor do I think it is (ever) a good idea to look
at similarities in definitions of words to decide that the words must
mean similar things.
(0003952)
Don Cragun (manager)
2018-04-12 16:00
edited on: 2018-04-12 16:04

We discussed this issue during the 2014-04-12 conference call and agree with the comments in Note: 0003943. This bug is rejected. Note also that Merriam Webster's dictionary is the underlying dictionary for the standard; not Wiktionary. It defines recognition as "the sensing and encoding of printed or written data by a machine".

(0003953)
geoffclare (manager)
2018-04-12 16:04

Regarding the use of "word", note that it is a defined term. See XBD 3.446 which says that in the shell command language, a word is "a token other than an operator."

- Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2016-10-12 09:49 Mark_Galeck New Issue
2016-10-12 09:49 Mark_Galeck Name => Mark Galeck
2016-10-12 09:49 Mark_Galeck Section => 2.3 Token Recognition
2016-10-12 09:49 Mark_Galeck Page Number => 2347-2348
2016-10-12 09:49 Mark_Galeck Line Number => 74742-74755
2016-10-28 08:21 geoffclare Relationship added related to 0001100
2018-03-28 03:25 kre Note Added: 0003943
2018-04-12 16:00 Don Cragun Interp Status => ---
2018-04-12 16:00 Don Cragun Note Added: 0003952
2018-04-12 16:00 Don Cragun Status New => Closed
2018-04-12 16:00 Don Cragun Resolution Open => Rejected
2018-04-12 16:04 Don Cragun Note Edited: 0003952
2018-04-12 16:04 geoffclare Note Added: 0003953


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