Possible PASCAL addition to config.hpp?

From: Michael Kenniston (Msk_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-07-10 16:09:54

At least two compilers reserve the identifier "pascal" as a keyword.
By my reading of the C++ standard this is ISO-non-compliant, and it
creates problems for any units library.  Normally one could just choose
a new name for something, but the word "pascal" /is/ the internationally

standard term for the basic SI unit of pressure.

Changing the first letter to upper case ("Pascal") is not a good
solution,
because it violates a standard - [NIST SP811] par 9.1 says "When spelled

out in full, unit names are treated like ordinary English nouns.  Thus
the
names of all units start with a lower-case letter, except at the
beginning
of a sentence or in capitalized material such as a title.")

Adding an underscore on the end ("pascal_") works, but it doesn't
seem fair to impose that irregularity on users of compliant compilers.
We could make it regular by adding an underscore to the end of
/every/ unit of measurement, but that's even uglier.

Would it be reasonable to add new macro
BOOST_NO_PASCAL_IDENTIFIER to config.hpp?
This would allow compliant compilers to use "pascal", and only
non-compliant users would see the irregular "pascal_".

At first this seems like an application-specific flag, but it does look
like a true compliancy failure and it could impact /any/ program
that does scientific or engineering calculations.

--
- Michael Kenniston
  mkenniston_at_[hidden]
  msk_at_[hidden]     http://www.xnet.com/~msk/
[NIST SP811] National Institute of Standards and Technology, Special
Publication 811, "Guide for the Use of the International System of
Units (SI)".  http://www.nist.gov/