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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