Different between symbol and string ?

[Chris Li]

What is exactly different between symbol and string ? Symbol has never
appear in other language.

 

[Matthew Moss]

What is exactly different between symbol and string ? Symbol has never
appear in other language.

In a sense, symbols appear in almost every language, but under another
name: identifier. A Symbol is an identifier without any associated
storage.

Granted, that's probably too simple/naive an explanation. You might
also try searching the archives for this mailing list; discussions
about Symbol have come 'round many a times with some quite thorough
discussions.

 

[_-_ Daniel _-_]

What is exactly different between symbol and string ? Symbol has never
appear in other language.

http://glu.ttono.us/articles/2005/08/19/understanding-ruby-symbols

 

[Phlip]

What is exactly different between symbol and string ? Symbol has never
appear in other language.

Except for the Smalltalk #symbol and the Perl "bareword" concept...

Irritatingly, _all_ languages have an internal "symbol table" concept, but they
keep it hidden. Only the best languages expose it as a programmer convenience...

 

[Avdi Grimm]

Except for the Smalltalk #symbol and the Perl "bareword" concept...

...and Lisp symbols...

--
Avdi

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