Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Thu Mar 7 18:56:13 EST 2019

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Paul Moore wrote:
> There's a subtle difference in the mathematical
> and computing meanings [of idempotent] (around functions
 > with side-effects, which aren't a thing in maths)

Not really an issue here, since optionxform shouldn't be having
side effects if it's sane.

In any case, the word is easy enough to avoid in this case.
We could say something like:

    "The optionxform function transforms option names to a
    canonical form. If the name is already in canonical form,
    it should be returned unchanged."

-- 
Greg

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