Universal Metacharacters

From: http://chatlogs.planetrdf.com/swig/2006-08-09.html#T08-01-12

<Biblio> in many programming languages, in HTML, etc, we normally have to
choose some way to escape content. question: wouldn't it be better to define
say 5 or 10 extra, arbitrary characters, just to use them as universal
escaping characters?

<Biblio> (or even, if anyone envisions some other functionalities, as
universal metacharacters?)

<rudi> imagine writing a book and wanting to say "the escaping characters
are: %$&" - how would you mark that sentence up?

<Biblio> rudi, by repeating each metacharacter twice?

<Biblio> we could probably use a second metacharacter as universal commenter

<rudi> same problem - in a tutorial, you want to say "the universal
commenter is %." without %. vanishing from the text :)

<stain> even by passing it through several filters

<Biblio> what if you repeat the metacharacter twice?

<Biblio> you would have only two ocurrences: one metacharacter, then escape
the following text; two, then print the metacharacter


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Universal Metacharacters

Say a dozen (one for each F-key in keyboards).
+ 1 as universal commenter
+ 1 as universal escaper
+ 10 more for the future, unless somebody can think of some more uses
already

Comments?

Fernando Franco