Coding without braces: An alternate C Syntax
(deusinmachina.net)
I recently stumbled upon an interesting piece of C language trivia that underscores how different computers were when C was first created. Specifically, C allows the use of digraphs (two letter combinations that represent a single letter) like <% and %> as alternatives of { and } and <: and :> as substitutes for [ and ]. The purpose of this was to provide an alternate syntax to support keyboards and character sets where braces and brackets were not available.
I recently stumbled upon an interesting piece of C language trivia that underscores how different computers were when C was first created. Specifically, C allows the use of digraphs (two letter combinations that represent a single letter) like <% and %> as alternatives of { and } and <: and :> as substitutes for [ and ]. The purpose of this was to provide an alternate syntax to support keyboards and character sets where braces and brackets were not available.