Why Are Digraphs in C and C Still Relevant Today?

Digraphs in C and C : A Historical Perspective

In the early days of computing, programmers often lacked keyboards that supported the ISO 646 character set. To address this limitation, digraphs were created as a means of representing special characters using two adjacent characters.

Digraphs were introduced in C99 and C to alleviate the challenge of typing certain characters, particularly those that are not readily available on conventional keyboards. For example, the digraph "??:" is used to represent the forward colon (:) character.

The aforementioned program is a valid example of digraph usage in C. It includes the use of digraphs such as "??=" (equal sign) and "??:" (forward colon) in the "copy" function. These digraphs serve as replacements for the respective characters, allowing the program to function correctly even on keyboards that lack support for those specific characters.

Digraphs have largely fallen out of favor in modern programming due to the widespread availability of keyboards that support Unicode. However, they remain a historical artifact in C and C , offering a testament to the ingenuity employed in overcoming the technological limitations of the past.

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