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000009_icon-group-sender _Thu Jan 22 10:28:55 1998.msg
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Received: from kingfisher.CS.Arizona.EDU (kingfisher.CS.Arizona.EDU [192.12.69.239])
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From: gep2@computek.net
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 20:40:17 -0600
Message-Id: <199801220240.UAA29186@axp.cmpu.net>
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Subject: Hebrew
To: icon-group@optima.CS.Arizona.EDU
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> Hebrew is a right-to-left language. Icon is oriented toward left-to-right
analysis, from all that I can tell.
> (1) Can Icon be reoriented to go right-to-left?
Not as it stands. Of course, you do have access to the source code, so I don't
see any insurmountable problems in developing a Hebrew-friendly[ier?] Icon
variant.
> (2) Failing that, are there any pitfalls in simply reversing the text of the
Hebrew, and running Icon left-to-right against the reversed text?
Pitfalls? Sure. None of them impassable, however.
Among the problems are that Hebrew is NOT *strictly* right-to-left, in that
numbers and non-Hebrew (such as English) words and names are embedded using the
normal left-to-right character sequencing. If you've ever worked with a
Hebrew-compatible word processor, this makes for very interesting jumping around
of the cursor as you press the "right" and "left" arrow keys!!
Most of the approaches I've seen seem to revolve around embedding an invisible
marker in the text which starts and ends different directional modes.
This is undeniably damned inconvenient. It sure would complicate string
scanning for example, since as you're scanning a string "sequentially" sometimes
the logically "next" character is nowhere near adjacent to the current one.
If there's any consolation, it's that Icon and S*BOL are probably the two
programming languages BEST-suited to handling this kind of complex textual
manipulation!
GOOD LUCK!
Gordon Peterson
http://www.computek.net/public/gep2/
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