Re: [bug-gawk] Error in gawk documentation

[arnold]

Greetings. Thanks for the bug report. I have fixed this in the gawk-4.0-stable
branch and it will shortly be pushed into the git repo.  The 3.1.x code
base is not seeing any further work.  I have no control (alas) over which
versions of gawk different distros ship; I wish they would all move to
gawk 4.x but only user requests / bug reports can motivate them to do so.

Thanks,

Arnold
----------------------------

William Bresler <address@hidden> wrote:

> Greetings.
>
> I would like to point out a minor error in the documentation for gawk, *GAWK:
> Effective AWK Programming*.  The error is in the current version of the
> document, corresponding to version 4.0.1 of gawk, but is also in every
> earlier version that I have been able to track down, including the third
> edition of the version published by O'Reilly, under the title *Effective
> AWK Programming*, of 2001.
>
> In the Glossary the entry for ISO reads as follows:
>
> The International Standards Organization. This organization produces
> > international
> > standards for many things, including programming languages, such as
> > C and C++. In the computer arena, important standards like those for C,
> > C++,
> > and POSIX become both American national and ISO international standards
> >
> simultaneously. This book refers to Standard C as “ISO C” throughout.
> >
>
> This is a common misunderstanding.  In fact, ISO is not an acronym but an
> invariant designation for the entity which defines and publishes
> standards.  (It comes from the Greek 'isos' meaning "the same", or
> "equal".)  The correct designation in English is "The International
> Organization for Standardization."   Simply visit their web site at
> www.iso.ch for confirmation.
>
> I would hope that this will be corrected in the document files for
> subsequent 4.x gawk releases and perhaps corrected in the documents for the
> 3.1.x release as well (since not everybody will immediately move on to the
> 4.x release.)
>
> I must say that I am a bit surprised that Mr. Robbins was unaware of this
> all too often repeated mistake, especially given the fact that he was
> involved with the portion of the POSIX standard which dealt with AWK and,
> hence, keyed in to the broader standards community.  I am even more
> surprised that nobody else has pointed this out for at least eleven years.
>
> Always one to strike a blow for accuracy, I leave matters in the very
> capable hands of the marvelous folks behind the GNU project.  Thank you for
> giving this matter your kind consideration.
>
> Sincerely,
>    William Bresler