orbit-lang/Bootstrap

Investigation - Lexer - Support Unicode Identifiers

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#8 opened on Aug 22, 2021

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Lexerenhancementgood first issuequestion

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Description

Currently, the lexer only matches [a-z_]+[a-zA-Z0-9_]* for identifiers (terms). However, most modern languages support the full set of Unicode word characters.

It its important to remember that Orbit is opinionated about identifiers, requiring them to begin with 1 or more lowercase letters, to distinguish them from type identifiers, which are always capitalised.

Before we can support Unicode identifiers, we need to determine what we consider a lowercase character. Do we say any character outside of ASCII a-z can be used in place of a lowercase? Or, do we define a strict subset of Unicode characters that may be used as lowercase?

Contributor guide

Research direction
Investigate Unicode character properties to define which characters are considered lowercase for Orbit identifiers. Consider whether to allow any Unicode lowercase letter or define a strict subset based on Unicode categories.
Tech stack
kotlin
Domain
backend
Issue type
Research
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
Fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
Clear
Prerequisites
Unicode character classes
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
70