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Now I'm interested to know which languages exist that don't rely heavily on backslashes. I guess I can't think of a language that doesn't use blackslashes for

Now I'm interested to know which languages exist that don't rely heavily on backslashes. I guess I can't think of a language that doesn't use blackslashes for string escapes. Some other uses off the top of my head: * C -- line-continuations (important for macros). * Perl -- regex back-references. * Haskell -- anonymous functions. * Python -- line continuation. * Tcl -- line continuation. * Icon -- non-null test (unary), generator limitation (binary). * Prolog -- \+ for not provable. * J -- the prefix adverb and the grade-down verb (\:). * TeX -- Yes.

rfurmani 14y ago
Technically, for Perl you can use $ for regex backreferences. I don't remember which one is preferred, but I remember it frowning upon one of them.
- btilly 14y ago
  What you use depends on where you use it. Inside of a match, \1 refers to what was matched by the first parens. After the match $1 refers to what was matched. In a substitution, \1 is special cased to mean $1, but that is frowned on. Thus: /\b(\w+)\W+\1\b/ means "match repeated word". And: /\b(\w+)\W+$1\b/ means "match word preceeded by the word matched on your last match. Moving on: s/Hello (\w+)/Goodbye $!/ means "Replace Hello followed by a word with Goodbye followed by the same word." And finally: s/Hello (\w+)/Goodbye \1/ is special cased to mean the same thing, but is frowned upon.
rdtsc 14y ago
> Now I'm interested to know which languages exist that don't rely heavily on backslashes. I posit that line continuations don't count, at least not in the "rely heavily" category. Then I am not sure how popular J and Icon are. So let' keep those away. Is the backlash really used that often in Prolog? I wouldn't say "heavily". So that leaves us with: * Perl * Haskell * Tex I think that's a more realistic "rely heavily" category.
- GregBuchholz 14y ago
  "\tDon't forget the \"main\" uses.\u263A\n"
runn1ng 14y ago
During my perl experience, I learned that any special character next to $ is usually some magic variable that does something. So I would bet that $\ also does something. edit: oh yeah. $\ - The output record separator for the print operator. If defined, this value is printed after the last of print's arguments. Default is undef.

rfurmani 14y ago

Technically, for Perl you can use $ for regex backreferences. I don't remember which one is preferred, but I remember it frowning upon one of them.

btilly 14y ago
What you use depends on where you use it. Inside of a match, \1 refers to what was matched by the first parens. After the match $1 refers to what was matched. In a substitution, \1 is special cased to mean $1, but that is frowned on. Thus: /\b(\w+)\W+\1\b/ means "match repeated word". And: /\b(\w+)\W+$1\b/ means "match word preceeded by the word matched on your last match. Moving on: s/Hello (\w+)/Goodbye $!/ means "Replace Hello followed by a word with Goodbye followed by the same word." And finally: s/Hello (\w+)/Goodbye \1/ is special cased to mean the same thing, but is frowned upon.

rdtsc 14y ago

> Now I'm interested to know which languages exist that don't rely heavily on backslashes. I posit that line continuations don't count, at least not in the "rely heavily" category. Then I am not sure how popular J and Icon are. So let' keep those away. Is the backlash really used that often in Prolog? I wouldn't say "heavily". So that leaves us with: * Perl * Haskell * Tex I think that's a more realistic "rely heavily" category.

GregBuchholz 14y ago
"\tDon't forget the \"main\" uses.\u263A\n"

runn1ng 14y ago

During my perl experience, I learned that any special character next to $ is usually some magic variable that does something. So I would bet that $\ also does something. edit: oh yeah. $\ - The output record separator for the print operator. If defined, this value is printed after the last of print's arguments. Default is undef.