Re: Technical name for the #?

["Ahuja, Rasil K., Ms., IMCEN" <AhujaRK -at- HQDA -dot- ARMY -dot- MIL>]

|Can anyone tell me what the precise name for the # symbol is and it's
|most commonly used name? I have heard it called the pound, the hash,
|the number sign, and the octothorpe.


Hi, Vicki.

According to my online computing dicitonary, the answer is:

1. <character> "#", ASCII code 35.

Common names: number sign; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp; crunch; hex;
INTERCAL: mesh. Rare: grid; crosshatch;
octothorpe; flash; ITU-T: square, pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud;
thump; splat.

The pronunciation of "#" as "pound" is common in the US but a bad idea;
Commonwealth Hackish has its own, rather more apposite use of "pound sign"
(confusingly, on British keyboards the pound graphic happens to replace "#";
thus Britishers sometimes call "#" on a US-ASCII keyboard "pound",
compounding the American error). The US usage derives from an
old-fashioned commercial practice of using a "#" suffix to tag pound weights
on bills of lading. The character is usually pronounced "hash" outside the
US.

2. <programming> hash table.

3. The preferred term for a Perl associative array.

Hope this helps.

-rasil

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