Article View: comp.lang.misc
Article #2809Re: Printing plural forms.
From: Oliver Laumann
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 13:04
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 13:04
25 lines
1410 bytes
1410 bytes
In article <1991Feb19.104810.549@ZYX.SE> arndt@zyx.ZYX.SE (Arndt Jonasson) writes:
> We all have seen and, in various degrees, been irritated by texts such as:
>
> 1 files were copied
>
> when it should have been:
>
> 1 file was copied
>
> I'd like to know: when programming, how do you avoid such errors? Are
> there features in the programming language you use (or other languages
> you know) that make plural handling especially easy or difficult?
The Common Lisp function "format" has a mechanism to automatically
pluralize a word by appending an `s' when appropriate. This is no
wonder considering that "format" even has formatting requests to
print a number with roman numerals or as english words (e.g.
"twentyfour files copied")...
In C, a common idiom (well, at least in my programs) is
printf("%d file%s copied.\n", nfiles, "s"+(nfiles==1));
--
Oliver Laumann net@tub.cs.tu-berlin.de net@tub.UUCP net@pogo.ai.mit.edu
Technical Details
Message-ID:
<2706@kraftbus.cs.tu-berlin.de>Path:
arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!shelby!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ira.uka.de!opal!netReferences:
<1991Feb19.104810.549@ZYX.SE>Show Full Headers
Complete Article Headers
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!shelby!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!ira.uka.de!opal!net From: net@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de (Oliver Laumann) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Printing plural forms. Message-ID: <2706@kraftbus.cs.tu-berlin.de> Date: 19 Feb 91 13:04:52 GMT References: <1991Feb19.104810.549@ZYX.SE> Organization: Technical University of Berlin, Germany Lines: 25