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Questions tagged [symbols]

can refer to a letter or special character; a primitive data type in many programming languages; an item of the alphabet of a formal language.

Symbol can refer to:

  • A letter or special character, e.g. '@'. Questions about character processing or dealing with specific characters can be tagged with this tag.
  • A primitive data type in many programming languages (Lisp, Prolog, Ruby, Smalltalk etc.)
  • An item of the alphabet of a formal language.
3215 questions
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Reference — What does this symbol mean in PHP?

What is this? This is a collection of questions that come up every now and then about syntax in PHP. This is also a Community Wiki, so everyone is invited to participate in maintaining this list. Why is this? It used to be hard to find questions…
Gordon
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What characters can be used for up/down triangle (arrow without stem) for display in HTML?

I'm looking for a HTML or ASCII character which is a triangle pointing up or down so that I can use it as a toggle switch. I found ↑ (↑), and ↓ (↓) - but those have a narrow stem. I'm looking just for the HTML arrow "head".
Timj
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How do I list the symbols in a .so file

How do I list the symbols being exported from a .so file? If possible, I'd also like to know their source (e.g. if they are pulled in from a static library). I'm using gcc 4.0.2, if that makes a difference.
Moe
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What is the motivation for bringing Symbols to ES6?

UPDATE: Recently a brilliant article from Mozilla came up. Read it if you're curious. As you may know they are planning to include new Symbol primitive type in ECMAScript 6 (not to mention some other crazy stuff). I always thought that the :symbol…
Yanis
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Placing Unicode character in CSS content value

I have a problem. I have found the HTML code for the downwards arrow, ↓ (↓) Cool. Now I need to use it in CSS like so: nav a:hover {content:"&darr";} That obviously won't work since ↓ is an HTML symbol. There seems to be less info about…
davecave
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How to change facet labels?

I have used the following ggplot command: ggplot(survey, aes(x = age)) + stat_bin(aes(n = nrow(h3), y = ..count.. / n), binwidth = 10) + scale_y_continuous(formatter = "percent", breaks = c(0, 0.1, 0.2)) + facet_grid(hospital ~ .) +…
wishihadabettername
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What is the colon operator in Ruby?

When I say { :bla => 1, :bloop => 2 }, what exactly does the : do? I read somewhere about how it's similar to a string, but somehow a symbol. I'm not super-clear on the concept, could someone enlighten me?
LuxuryMode
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In HTML I can make a checkmark with ✓ . Is there a corresponding X-mark?

Is there a corresponding X mark to ✓ (✓)? What is it?
nc.
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Is there Unicode glyph Symbol to represent "Search"

Unicode has a million icon-like glyphs, but they're very hard to search. Is there a Unicode glyph that looks like a "Binocular" or "magnifying glass"? Or is there a symbol that's used to mean "Search", which is in Unicode?
Prasad Jadhav
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Is there a literal notation for an array of symbols?

I like this literal expression for an array of strings: %w( i can easily create arrays of words ) I am wondering if there is a literal to get an array of symbols. I know I can do %w( it is less elegant to create arrays of symbols ).map( &:to_sym…
m_x
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Why use symbols as hash keys in Ruby?

A lot of times people use symbols as keys in a Ruby hash. What's the advantage over using a string? E.g.: hash[:name] vs. hash['name']
user979912
161
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16 answers

Enums in Javascript with ES6

I'm rebuilding an old Java project in Javascript, and realized that there's no good way to do enums in JS. The best I can come up with is: const Colors = { RED: Symbol("red"), BLUE: Symbol("blue"), GREEN:…
Eric the Red
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What is the purpose of the '@' symbol in CSS?

I just stumbled across this question and I noticed the user is using some notation I've never seen before: @font-face { /* CSS HERE */ } So is this @ symbol something new in CSS3, or something old that I've somehow overlooked? Is this something…
Hristo
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How to count instances of character in SQL Column

I have an sql column that is a string of 100 'Y' or 'N' characters. For example: YYNYNYYNNNYYNY... What is the easiest way to get the count of all 'Y' symbols in each row.
cindi
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How to get an outline view in sublime texteditor?

How do I get an outline view in sublime text editor for Windows? The minimap is helpful but I miss a traditional outline (a klickable list of all the functions in my code in the order they appear for quick navigation and orientation) Maybe there is…
user89021
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