Re: How do you pronounce variable names?

[moklevat]

FWIW, based on what I picked up in the computer lab in the late 1980s, I used to always read $somescalar as "string somescalar". Now, after some effort to re-learn it, I read it as "scalar somescalar" most of the time. After looking up some old punctuation poetry it appears that "dollar" was the common idiom back then, so I guess I have no idea where "string" came from in my lexicon.

Update:Apparently I learned it from BASIC, though that would have been much earlier than the late 80s, but it stuck.

[Aim9b]

Probably from BASIC. Early versions required String field names to start with a $ (ie $a, $bc, etc.) If it didn't, it was assumed numeric and you usualy ended up with a letter that resulted in a zero. This is from MBASIC, circa 1975. Also, field names were limited to only two characters back then, and if they started with i thru r they were considered integer, otherwise floating. How did we ever survive? ;-)

[DrHyde]

In every BASIC I'm familiar with, the $ came at the *end* of the variable. And this thread reminds me of a thread I started many years ago in comp.lang.perl.misc about pronunciation. Much of the advice there is good, the obvious error being to pronounce the # sign as "pound".

[kyle]

I used to call "$" "string" because that's what it was called in BASIC. A string variable FOO$ was read, "foo string".