News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand sounds like "address"'. Parent comment

Re:C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand so... by OJFord on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @09:59AM (#37832197)
No, but it does use:

    *
for italics, which sometimes causes a comment to go haywire because someone uses it to reference a footnote or otherwise drops it in mid-sentence, with a matching closing one, not intending italics.

(Up-thread I think it probably was like that when they commented, but has since been fixed.)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand so... by wruza on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @04:20PM (#37836944)
Btw, you can now(?) escape * in a paragraph with \*.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:C uses "&" for the address-operator because 'ampersand so... by OJFord on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @06:54PM (#37838816)
Yes, it's also automatic in some cases - originally my comment had an attempt at a joke example of it, but it was caught and didn't work. It was definitely improved relatively recently.
[ Parent | on HN ]