Re:
I'm similarly perplexed by IBM's frequent usage, as in:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLTBW_2.1.0/com.ibm.zos.v2r1.ieaa200/ENQ_Description.htm
... The name can contain any valid hexadecimal character. ...
On Wed, 4 Dec 2019 14:09:29 -0500, Gord Tomlin wrote:
>On 2019-12-04 13:52, Tom Marchant wrote:
>> The point of using a term like "any hexadecimal character" is to
>> indicate that all 256 possible values in the byte are acceptable.
>
>Even that breaks down if you choose to let wide characters (e.g., UTF-16
>or UTF-32) into the conversation.
>
At various times programmers on various hardware architectures have
used "byte" to mean 6, 7, 8, 9, or 12 bits. Internet standards (RFC)
have coined the unambiguous term "octet".
ISTR that many releases ago the document cited explicitly forbade
DBCS characters so those would not have been considered "valid
hexadecimal". I no longer see the restriction; I doubt that it was
ever enforced.
Nowadays it requires that the "assembled length" be from 1 to 256.
The motivation may have been that operator Display commands show
intelligible QNAME and RNAME. But still, what code page of the console?
-- gil
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