From: Christopher Croughton <crough45 AT amc DOT de>
Message-Id: <97Sep20.134323gmt+0100.11650@internet01.amc.de>
Subject: Re: or symbol
To: bshadwick AT juno DOT com (Ben N Shadwick)
Date: Sat, 20 Sep 1997 12:47:59 +0100
Cc: crough45 AT amc DOT de, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
In-Reply-To: <19970919.104753.8798.0.bshadwick@juno.com> from "Ben N Shadwick" at Sep 19, 97 06:47:43 pm
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Ben N Shadwick wrote:
> 
> Yes I didn't think of that. Thanks. Of course, since the poster didn't
> say which type of keyboard he was using, it was still probably a good
> idea to post it along with everyone else's post for other types of
> keyboards anyways.

I didn't see the original post, but there are a lot of non-US/UK people
on the list (several Germans, who I know use a different keyboard as
standard because I work here and had difficulty getting a US one; I
don't know what other keyboard layouts are commonly used but I know
there are at least 6 'standard' layouts in Europe alone).

(You don't want to use a German keyboard.  It swaps 'Y' and 'Z' so
it's a 'QWERTZ' not a 'QWERTY' layout, and puts punctuation all over
the place.  < and > aren't over , and . as God and IBM intended, they
are on their own key (> is shifted <), and almost everything else is
shifted as well.  I've seen a Swedish one, it was different but as 
bad, the French apparently has yet another layout of letters...)

There was nothing wrong with your posting the information, indeed -
my quibble was with your implied assumption that the US/UK layout
was 'the' layout.  Wishful thinking, I suspect - it would be nice
if there was just one standard layout.  It would make the job of us
international programmes so much easier...

> >If you're a Unix boff, yes.  Like most ASCII characters, 
> >however, they have lots of names - "or symbol" (or just 
> >'or'), "vertical bar" or 'bar', "broken bar" (from the 
> >representation on many printers and terminals with a gap
> >in the middle), etc.  There is no one correct name.
> 
> It's called that on IBM PC platforms as well, although people sometimes
> refer to it by the other names you mentioned, usually depending on the
> context in which the character itself is used.

True, MSDOS does have something it calls 'pipes', but I've never heard
it called that by anyone without some Unix background.  The most common
I've heard (in England) is 'bar', followed by 'or' if someone is talking
about the program code.  It's quite possible that 'pipe' is more common
in America, where a 'bar' is generally a drinking place (in England the 
'pub' or "public house" is more often where programmers gather to drink).

(If you really want a list of variant names for ASCII characters, the Jargon
File (formerly the Hackers' Dictionary) has dozens...)

Chris C