Re: terminology: zero character vs. null character

[Manuel López-Ibáñez <lopezibanez at gmail dot com>]

On 06/03/17 21:15, Roland Illig wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am currently translating GCC into German. During that, I noticed that
> in some places the term "zero character" means '\0'. The official term
> though is "null character", as per the C standard.
>
> Since it is confusing to have two different terms for the same concept,
> the term "zero character" should be dropped entirely, both because it is
> uncommon and because it can be confused with '0'.
>
> Since this affects several places in the code, I think it's better to
> start a small discussion first instead of writing several PRs.

I don't see anything explicit here: https://gcc.gnu.org/codingconventions.html 
But I believe we follow standards' language and it should always be "null 
character". Having a discussion first is likely to get nowhere. It sounds too 
much like "maybe we should" (point 11: https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/Community).

Please send a patch fixing it:

https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/GettingStarted#Basics:_Contributing_to_GCC_in_10_easy_steps

You can also send a patch changing https://gcc.gnu.org/codingconventions.html. 
Once that is accepted, obvious changes to match the coding conventions are 
usually considered pre-approved.

Cheers,

	Manuel.