If I'm understanding you correctly, then most English speakers would call that correct. It's short for "character" so is pronounced as the first syllable of that (with a hard 'ch') not like the word "char" is pronounced. I think I personally would swap between the two fairly randomly, probably due to learning to code from text-based sources and not hearing it pronounced till much later.

To be clear: I do not mean the /k/ sound, but the /x/ or /χ/ (voiceless velar/uvular fricative), which is seldom used in English, except when properly pronouncing the names of Scottish lochs, or the name of J.S. Bach. Maybe it's not even used at all in English, but only in Scottish, but we're getting off-topic already.

If I were consciously trying to pronounce "char" as an English speaker would, I would probably say /tʃɑr/.

Interesting; I pronounce "loch" as "lock" and Merriam-Webster seems to agree. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/loch I guess you're referring to the UK pronounciation listed here instead? http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/loc...

I thought the use of the specific word "loch" would have been clear enough, but apparently the pronunciation of that word I thought I'd heard a lot on the BBC is not known as widely as I thought. Maybe I'm misremembering. None of the pronunciations you linked to is what I intended. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_velar_fricative or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_uvular_fricative , as well as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English#Phonology .