J3/03-208r1

Date: 19 August 2003
To: J3
From: Dick Hendrickson
Subject: Miscellaneous minor edits to 03-007:     N1547

Re:  WG5/N1547

J3 response to WG5 paper N1547, including comments from J3/03-214

                                          ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG5 N1547

                    Miscellaneous minor edits to 03-007

                               David Muxworthy

This is a revision of the proposed edits which were distributed in
SC22WG5 e-mail message 2893 of July 24 2003.  Thanks are due to
Malcolm Cohen for suggesting corrections and improvements.

1.  May not
ISO (and BSI) style rules do not allow use of "may not" to express a
prohibition because it is ambiguous.  It could mean "must (or can)
not", or "it might not happen that" or "is not permitted to".  The
following edits would remove the phrase.

34:13    "may not" -> "shall not"
41:0+5   "may not" -> "might not"
59:8+3   "may not" -> "cannot"
176:4+2  "may not" -> "cannot"
176:37   "may or may not" -> "might or might not"
194:12+3 "may not" -> "shall not"
245:5+3  "may not" -> "cannot"
249:7+3  "may not" -> "might not"
312:8+9  "may or may not" -> "might or might not"
467:35   "may or may not" -> "might or might not"
467:42   "may or may not" -> "might or might not"
469:24   "may or may not" -> "might or might not"
469:28   "may or may not" -> "might or might not"

While on the subject, paper N1524 (J3/03-201)(referring to 03-104r2) suggests
changing line 489:27 from "..  which may be unsupported..." to "...
which might be unsupported...".  I would suggest "...  which might not
be supported..."
489:27  "which may be unsupported" -> "which might not be supported"

2.  Normative references
Section 1.9 states that ISO/IEC 646:1991 is to be referenced herein as
"the ASCII standard" and ISO/IEC 9899:1999 as "the C standard".  There
is no such shorthand for ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000 which is referenced in
full some half dozen times.  Is this deliberate or an oversight?

In any case the first short form is not used consistently.  "ASCII
standard" is used only once, at 42:12, whereas the full form is used
at 40:12 and 322:1-2.  I would suggest replacing the latter two by the
short form.  The term "C standard" is used multiple times.

Edits (From J3/03-214)
8:26  Delete "This standard ... ASCII standard."
40:12 After "1991", insert "(International Reference Version)"

3.  Other edits
8:29     "9989" -> "9899"
{we ought to get the reference to the C standard right}

182:13   "do not do" -> "do not perform"
{we usually "perform" I/O rather than "do" it}