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Scheme number notation
R3RS doesn't say what the meaning of E notation (for the exponent) is.
In MIT C/Scheme, apparently <stuff>e<exp> means <stuff>*10^<exp>
regardless of the base. E.g. #b1e2 is 100 decimal, not 100 binary.
You're right that R3RS leaves the notation for exponents underspecified. I
discovered this when I used some of the MIT Scheme number-parser code to
write my own reader. My reader now uses the radix specified in the prefix
(if any) as the radix for reading the exponent. Thus #b1e2 is 100 binary.
Worse yet, though the lexical grammar allows E<exp> with any base, it
can't work with hex, since E is a hex digit. Hence,
#b1E2 = #o1E2 = 1E2 = 100
but #x1E2 = 482
I also ran into the problem with E in hex: without thinking about it, I
formulated the test case 1.1E-2 and got reader errors (obviously). Since E
notation is really just a hold-over from FORTRAN, why not use ^ instead?
It would look nicer and wouldn't conflict with any reasonable radix.
Another problem in implementing a reader in Scheme is that R3RS also
underspecifies the relationships among the return values of CHAR->INTEGER.
There is no guarantee that the numeric characters are together in the
character code. My reader (and the MIT Scheme reader) relies on this
anyway.
-Mark