Clear Filters
Clear Filters

What about the character #?

24 views (last 30 days)
Patrik Ek
Patrik Ek on 27 Mar 2015
Commented: Patrik Ek on 27 Mar 2015
Hi,
I wonder if anyone have an idea about the character #. It appears to have no use in matlab and it can neither be used in variable names,
#a = 0; %ERROR!
b.#c = 0; %ERROR!
So, does it have some use that I have still to identify, is it excluded for a reason, ... I am simply curious, what is the thing with the hash?

Accepted Answer

Thorsten
Thorsten on 27 Mar 2015
Edited: Thorsten on 27 Mar 2015
There is no special thing with the hash. In some script languages it is used as the comment character, and I've seen things like
%# my comment here
You have to use alphanumeric characters for variables, functions etc, and they must not start with a number. Like #, you cannot use $, !, § etc.
So in principle Mathworks could have decided to allow #, but probably because it is not allowed in variable or function names in all programming languages that I know, they decided the same for Matlab.
  1 Comment
Patrik Ek
Patrik Ek on 27 Mar 2015
Ok, I suspected something like that. The main reason that I started to think about it was that I got a crash in some legacy code since the files it parsed suddenly started to get properties like #Things instead of NumThings. Though it may not have been the choice of mine I guess I have little choice in this. A `strrep` solved the issue anyway. Thanks for the explanation.

Sign in to comment.

More Answers (0)

Categories

Find more on Language Support in Help Center and File Exchange

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!