5 ms·

Does any other language require to use a special notation, similar to PHP’s “$”, any time a variable is referenced? I can only think of CSS, using “--“.

krapp 5y ago
PHP got that from Perl AFAIK. Bash does it too, and TCL.
- chubot 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that historically shell is the common influence of PHP, Perl, and Tcl. PHP also inherits shell's here doc syntax, e.g. <<EOF . Not sure if Perl has that. Actually PHP started out as a bunch of cgi-bin scripts, if I recall. It was very much "a shell for the web". It kind of annoys me that they all require $ on the left, whereas shell only requires it on the right, which somehow makes more sense to me, e.g. a=$b # shell $a = $b # PHP and I think Perl
  - pweezy 5y ago
    > It kind of annoys me that they all require $ on the left, whereas shell only requires it on the right Interesting - it makes it look like Bash uses $ to “read” from the variable, while in PHP/Perl $ only indicates that the rest of the symbol _is_ a variable.
  - tyingq 5y ago
    >>PHP also inherits shell's here doc syntax, e.g. <<EOF . Not sure if Perl has that. It does. >>It kind of annoys me that they all require $ on the left Larry Wall says he went that direction to make namespace clashing between $dog, @dog, %dog, and "sub dog {}" (scalar, array, hashtable, function) a non-issue. http://www.wall.org/~larry/natural.html http://www.wall.org/~larry/natural.html ("Disambiguation")
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Ruby also has $ for global variables, which I assume it also got via Perl. And @ for instance variables, and @@ for class variables.
- TylerE 5y ago
  It's much worse in perl, because it changes based on how you're using it. E.g. an array vs an element of an array.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ainar-g 5y ago
krapp has already mentioned the Unix stuff. BASIC had a thing with a $ at the end of a string variable, iirc. Windows' CMD.EXE used %VAR% notation (and later !VAR! notation).
toastal 5y ago
This is called a “sigil”
todotask 5y ago
It's more than what most of us know, Rosetta Code is a good way to find. https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Variables https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Variables
jansommer 5y ago
jsoniq uses the same notation https://www.jsoniq.org/ https://www.jsoniq.org/
dylan604 5y ago
jquery, lodash, etc all added prefixes (or TIL: sigil) of somesort
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  > jquery, lodash, etc all added prefixes (or TIL: sigil) of somesort This is false they are not sigils at all. _ and $ are legal variable names in Javascript.
- nobleach 5y ago
  jQuery's $ and lodash's _ are not prepended to a symbol to denote a variable. Both are objects actually. In the case of jQuery, $ === jQuery (the root jQuery object). The case that the parent is talking about is PHP's requirement that all variables are denoted as such `$variable_name`. (Perl and Bash also do this)
  - dylan604 5y ago
    i forget that's what's actually being done under the hood.
- graftak 5y ago
  That’s just (part of) the variable name and not really the same.
tyingq 5y ago
These all use sigils on variables in one way or another: Unix Shells, AWK, Perl, Ruby, Tcl, Basic, PowerShell, DOS batch scripts
- markkrj 5y ago
  -AWK
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Ah, yeah, I suppose it's more of a "field operator" for things like $1, $2, etc.
- draw_down 5y ago
icedchai 5y ago
Basic uses them at the end for string variables... A$...
Eric_WVGG 5y ago
Back in the eighties, my father taught me that the “$” character in BASIC meant “string,” so when I later picked up PHP in ‘98 I mentally thought of $someVar as “string-someVar” (regardless of the actual type, which was of course no problem for PHP), kept that habit for well over a decade… I think it was partially my self-disgust over such silly and technically incorrect thinking that led me to bail for Node as soon that was a feasible alternative. The dollar sign does kinda look like a loose piece of shoestring, though
agumonkey 5y ago
I can't remember all details but in Lisp in small pieces, author describes variable handling with a table { creation, reference/access, modification, [deletion] } with each category had it's own optional syntax, many language will avoid this through context in which the symbol is, thus (+ a 1) equates (+ (deref a) 1), but he meant that it was a choice and not an obligation and some systems used $ or other syntactic constructs.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

krapp 5y ago

PHP got that from Perl AFAIK. Bash does it too, and TCL.

chubot 5y ago
I'm pretty sure that historically shell is the common influence of PHP, Perl, and Tcl. PHP also inherits shell's here doc syntax, e.g. <<EOF . Not sure if Perl has that. Actually PHP started out as a bunch of cgi-bin scripts, if I recall. It was very much "a shell for the web". It kind of annoys me that they all require $ on the left, whereas shell only requires it on the right, which somehow makes more sense to me, e.g. a=$b # shell $a = $b # PHP and I think Perl
- pweezy 5y ago
  > It kind of annoys me that they all require $ on the left, whereas shell only requires it on the right Interesting - it makes it look like Bash uses $ to “read” from the variable, while in PHP/Perl $ only indicates that the rest of the symbol _is_ a variable.
- tyingq 5y ago
  >>PHP also inherits shell's here doc syntax, e.g. <<EOF . Not sure if Perl has that. It does. >>It kind of annoys me that they all require $ on the left Larry Wall says he went that direction to make namespace clashing between $dog, @dog, %dog, and "sub dog {}" (scalar, array, hashtable, function) a non-issue. http://www.wall.org/~larry/natural.html http://www.wall.org/~larry/natural.html ("Disambiguation")
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Ruby also has $ for global variables, which I assume it also got via Perl. And @ for instance variables, and @@ for class variables.
TylerE 5y ago
It's much worse in perl, because it changes based on how you're using it. E.g. an array vs an element of an array.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ainar-g 5y ago

krapp has already mentioned the Unix stuff. BASIC had a thing with a $ at the end of a string variable, iirc. Windows' CMD.EXE used %VAR% notation (and later !VAR! notation).

toastal 5y ago

This is called a “sigil”

todotask 5y ago

It's more than what most of us know, Rosetta Code is a good way to find. https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Variables https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Variables

jansommer 5y ago

jsoniq uses the same notation https://www.jsoniq.org/ https://www.jsoniq.org/

dylan604 5y ago

jquery, lodash, etc all added prefixes (or TIL: sigil) of somesort

throw_m239339 5y ago
> jquery, lodash, etc all added prefixes (or TIL: sigil) of somesort This is false they are not sigils at all. _ and $ are legal variable names in Javascript.
nobleach 5y ago
jQuery's $ and lodash's _ are not prepended to a symbol to denote a variable. Both are objects actually. In the case of jQuery, $ === jQuery (the root jQuery object). The case that the parent is talking about is PHP's requirement that all variables are denoted as such `$variable_name`. (Perl and Bash also do this)
- dylan604 5y ago
  i forget that's what's actually being done under the hood.
graftak 5y ago
That’s just (part of) the variable name and not really the same.

tyingq 5y ago

These all use sigils on variables in one way or another: Unix Shells, AWK, Perl, Ruby, Tcl, Basic, PowerShell, DOS batch scripts

markkrj 5y ago
-AWK
- tyingq 5y ago
  Ah, yeah, I suppose it's more of a "field operator" for things like $1, $2, etc.
draw_down 5y ago

icedchai 5y ago

Basic uses them at the end for string variables... A$...

Eric_WVGG 5y ago

Back in the eighties, my father taught me that the “$” character in BASIC meant “string,” so when I later picked up PHP in ‘98 I mentally thought of $someVar as “string-someVar” (regardless of the actual type, which was of course no problem for PHP), kept that habit for well over a decade… I think it was partially my self-disgust over such silly and technically incorrect thinking that led me to bail for Node as soon that was a feasible alternative. The dollar sign does kinda look like a loose piece of shoestring, though

agumonkey 5y ago

I can't remember all details but in Lisp in small pieces, author describes variable handling with a table { creation, reference/access, modification, [deletion] } with each category had it's own optional syntax, many language will avoid this through context in which the symbol is, thus (+ a 1) equates (+ (deref a) 1), but he meant that it was a choice and not an obligation and some systems used $ or other syntactic constructs.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]