XPL in Xy4

["Carl L. Distefano" 70154.3452@xxxxxxxx]

1. PMJI re "Euro quotes", but... the difference between the
characters that enclose XyWrite commands and the ones that display and print as normal
Euro quotes, is this: the command characters are plain-vanilla, 1-byte
Ascii-174 and -175's; the printable characters consist of 3 bytes: Ascii-
255 + A + E (left quote) or Ascii-255 + A + F (right quote).
Since the 1- byte characters have a reserved use within XyWrite,
the clever people who created Xy devised a visual (screen and
printer) equivalent via this 3-byte agglomeration. Sharped-eyed
observers (everyone here!) will note that AE is hexadecimal for
174 and AF is hex 175. In fact, the whole 1-byte Ascii character
set has a 3-byte equivalent (actually, multiple equivalents, but
never mind) within XyWrite consisting of -- you guessed it --
Ascii-255 + X + Y, where XY is the hexadecimal equivalent of the
Ascii number of the character that will display & print. The
keyboard sequence
R1,R7,R4 or R1,R7,R5 generates the 3-byte printable Euro quotes
(XyWrite assumes you want printable characters when you map this
sequence). The classic monograph on this and other matters
relating to control characters in XyWrite III and III+ is Robert
J. Holmgren's CTRLCHAR.TXT; for an updated discussion applicable
to Xy4 and XyWin see "Coffee Break: One-Byte, Three-Byte, and
Five-Byte Characters", in the DOCumentation to
Holmgren's STACK.PM, in STACKXYW.ZIP. (CTRLCHAR.TXT in
particular is a gem!) Both files are available on the TTG BBS.

2. Chet, I don't doubt the benefits of writing an article or
book, I just don't have the time! On the other hand ... like
you, I enjoy writing and talking about XPL, so I'll probably
chime in here from time to time.

Chet says:

>> if you're serious about implementing a standard strategy for use
>> of save-gets #s, the best way to do so is to instill the idea
>> through an article or chapter.

Actually, Robert Holmgren and I did get serious about
implementing such a strategy -- the result was REORGNIZ.ZIP,
which is available on the TTG BBS.

3. Thanks for the nice remarks about SmartSet. Comments (nice
or otherwise), especially bug reports, are always welcome.

--------------
Carl Distefano
70154.3452@xxxxxxxx