Re: BPCHAR description in 8.3. Character Types is misleading and incomplete

On Thursday, October 16, 2025, Sergei Katkovsky <skatkovsky(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 11:18 PM David G. Johnston
> <david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> >> > Think of padding as a noun, not a verb. “The value contains
> padding”. Not, “ I am padding the value”.
> >

> I'm afraid that adding
> another meaning to the word 'padded' in the same text will cause even
> more confusion.
>

I’m just trying to phrase the documentation for bpchar so that the “bp”,
which stands for “blank-padded”, is justified. The generic term for the
trailing spaces here is padding in the noun sense.

I do understand the terminology confusion with the verb padding. And see
why “trimmed” is actively confusing. The prose probably needs to resolve
this - and technically does from what I’m reading.

You may wish to move on from critiquing my suggested changes and instead
propose something concrete of your own. Provide a third choice besides
status-quo and my option.

Though I’m doubtful there is a nice precise hyphenated word to be found
here for “treats any trailing spaces as being semantically insignificant”.

David J.