Symbols are entered as an alphabetic character followed by a sequence of alphanumeric characters; case is significant. The single quote character ' is regarded as alphabetic, so that symbols such as x' may be used.
Symbols are used as names for values to be preserved, as indeterminates in polynomial rings, and as keys in hash tables. They may have global scope, meaning they are visible from every line of code, or local scope, with visibility restricted to a single file or function body.
i1 : ab12345cde |
See also symbolTable, local, global, quote, and :=.