[cfp-interest 3859] Fwd: DRAFT Action item: Review usage of "occurs(s)" with regard to N3737

[Jerome Coonen]

This note fulfills action item:

      Research usage of "occur(s)" and how it applies to proposal n3737.

In the 18 March meeting, we discussed the approval of N3737
<https://cfp-wiki.esi.com.au/pub/CFP/WebHome/n3737.pdf?_t=1775714338> by
WG14. The proposed language tries to clarify the difference between
exceptional circumstances in arithmetic, such as floating point overflow,
and errors reported in the C context, say, as a range error. The standard
does not require that all such exceptions be reported as errors.

The proposal included a key phrase:

      An error is said to occur when . . .

along with other language. WG14 approved the proposal, but removed italic
style that had been used on "occur" to emphasize the C context.

The CFP group is happy with this change, but decided to review the use of
"occur" in C2Y to ensure that the usage at hand is consistent. This is a
purely informational note on the usage of the verb "to occur" and the noun
"occurrence".

My survey of draft N3685 shows 420 total uses of the words, broken down as:
     337 uses of "occur" in the sense of "arise" or "happen"
    83 uses of "occur" in the sense of "appear"

Instances in the sense of "appear"  can be found throughout section 6,
describing the structure of the language and in the many functions related
to strings and scanning input.

The more prevalent form of "occur" pertains to the many kinds of errors
that C defines: constraint violation, input failure, encoding error,
matching failure, etc., and of course our domain, range, and pole errors in
the floating realm. These instances can be found throughout the standard,
notably in section 7.

As the draft stands, the language describing the flavors of floating point
errors is completely consistent with other usage throughout the standard.

-Jerome Coonen
 650.996.4738
 jcoonen at gmail.com
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