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Re: Using \[Breve] as a substitute for underscore

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg91038] Re: Using \[Breve] as a substitute for underscore
• From: David Bailey <dave at Remove_Thisdbailey.co.uk>
• Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 03:24:17 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <g725qe$n7d$1@smc.vnet.net>

Steven Siew wrote:
> In mathematica you cannot use underscore _  as part of a variable name
> as you could in other computer languages.
> 
> Has anyone tried using \[Breve] as an underscore substitute instead.
> 
> for example:
> 
> mass\[Breve]of\[Breve]earth = 5.97*^24
> 
> or
> 
> mass[esc]bv[esc]of[esc]bv[esc]earth = 5.97*^24
> 
> I kinda like "breve" because it looks like the standard underscore
> character.
> 
> What other characters do other people uses?
> 
> Steven Siew
> 
I also use \[Breve] extensively for this purpose in my Super Widget 
Package, and in other code I have written for my clients. I think it is 
a shame that underscore got used for patterns, and since I also write 
some Java and C code, I regularly forget and create 'variables' 
containing underscores.

Unfortunately, the breve character does not paste well into 
non-mathematica UNICODE environments because it would seem that it is a 
diacritic character.

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk