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Comments on Where to place digit separators in C23?

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Where to place digit separators in C23?

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C23 introduces the digit separator ' which can be placed anywhere inside an integer constant for the purpose of clarity and self-documenting code. These are otherwise ignored by the compiler when determining the value of the number.

However, the language standard provides no guidance regarding how to sensibly use digit separators. These were introduced to C with proposal N2626 which in turn provides no guidance either - for example it suggests that 2'3434'5323 might be clearer to read than 234345323, which I as a frequent user of engineering notation don't quite agree with. I believe the same feature was introduced in C++14 but with no guidance there either.

Are we to add ' at a whim or will are there any recommended practices to follow?

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1 comment thread

Out of curiosity, do you know why they chose this character? I'm asking because many languages use `_... (3 comments)
Out of curiosity, do you know why they chose this character? I'm asking because many languages use `_...
hkotsubo‭ wrote 5 months ago

Out of curiosity, do you know why they chose this character? I'm asking because many languages use _ as a digit separator, so I'm wondering why they opted for a different one.

Michael‭ wrote 5 months ago

Not "the" answer, just a comment: I think some locales actually use a ' as the digit separator (Switzerland? others?), whereas to my knowledge, none use an underscore. The other ones I know of (space, ,, .) are already taken by other syntactic meaning. Also, some of them are different in different locales, though I suppose those cultures are used to it by now.

Lundin‭ wrote 5 months ago

hkotsubo‭ The linked proposal N2626 offers some insights and reasoning regarding that.