Re: number->string radix patch

[Keith Wright]

> From: Marius Vollmer <address@hidden>
> Cc: Robert Uhl <address@hidden>, address@hidden
> 
> Richard Todd <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> Ok, I have finally installed your patch.  Thanks again!  (I wrote a
> basic ChangeLog entry, but please do that yourself for the next
> patch.)
> 
> I used your examples as test cases, but cannot reproduce some:
       <two deleted> 
>   guile> (number->string 1.324e44 16)
>   "5.EFE0A14FAFDF8e24"
> 
> The first looks certainly wrong, but I'm not sure about the other two.
> Richard, could you try to investigate this?

The third one worries me too.  Does this use the case of the
#\E (or #\e) to differentiate a hex digit from an exponent marker?
Scheme (or SCHEME) is supposed to be case insensitive, and I would
not want to break that useful and expected propery just to get this
rather special purpose "extension".

Maybe, since the Scheme report does not specify an exponent mark for
hex numbers, some other character should be chosen (after all, it no
longer means ten-to-the-power, but rather sixteen-to-the-power).  Or
else hex constants could be required to have an exponent marker of
either S (short) or L (long).  Unfortunately F and D (single and
double) have the same problem as E

Does this patch also change STRING->NUMBER to accept the extended
syntax?  What about in program text?

       -- Keith