Re: Clarify the meaning of "character" in the documentation

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Mar 5, 2024, 22:48 UTC
Message-ID: <ZeehSl-u3qAXKjF_@tapette.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <5e10f1e5-b87f-43cd-ac1e-d7c01b7dad21@app.fastmail.com>

On 2024-03-05 at 09:00:06, Kristoffer Haugsbakk wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> 
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2024, at 09:43, Manlio Perillo wrote:
> > I sent this email after reading the documentation of "git diff
> > --color-moved=blocks, where the text says:
> >> Blocks of moved text of at least 20 alphanumeric characters are detected greedily.
> >
> > In this case it is not clear if the number of characters are counted
> > as UTF-8 or normal 8bit bytes.
> 
> Alphanumeric characters (a-z and A-Z and 0-9) are ASCII. And one ASCII
> char is represented using one byte in UTF-8. This already looks precise
> to me.

I don't believe that's an appropriate definition. é is an alphanumeric character, as is ç. ½ is numeric. I would argue an alphanumeric character comprises at least Unicode classes Ll, Lm, Lo, Lt, Lu, and Nd. Unicode TR#18 agrees with my assessment.

If we wanted to restrict it ASCII, we need to state that explicitly. Alternately, if the constraint is 20 UTF-8 octets or something else, we should state that instead.

-- 
brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA