Symbols
How Symbols works
ASCII contains 33 symbol characters spread across punctuation and symbols group. They include mathematical operators (+, -, *, /, =, <, >), currency ($), delimiters ({}, [], ()), logical operators (&, |, ^, ~), and typographic marks (#, @, \, `).
Many ASCII symbols gained new meanings in computing far removed from their original typographic purpose. @ (code 64) went from accounting shorthand to email addressing to social media mentions. # (code 35) went from "number sign" to programming comments to hashtags. * (code 42) means multiplication in math, wildcard in file globbing, pointer dereference in C, and bold marker in Markdown. See individual character pages under the ASCII table for the full history of each symbol.
Many ASCII symbols gained new meanings in computing far removed from their original typographic purpose. @ (code 64) went from accounting shorthand to email addressing to social media mentions. # (code 35) went from "number sign" to programming comments to hashtags. * (code 42) means multiplication in math, wildcard in file globbing, pointer dereference in C, and bold marker in Markdown. See individual character pages under the ASCII table for the full history of each symbol.