How do you spell/pronounce all the special characters and symbols [closed]

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I sometimes need to look for information for a special portion of code. When this code concerns or contains a special character such as °, *, or #, they are not always recognized in search engines.

I often end up having to ask a new question because I do not know how to write these characters in plain text.

Can anybody provide a definitive source for how these special characters should be written in a searchable way (or pronounced)?

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You need the Jargon file. Amongst all the fantastic definitions (in the glossary section) is a list of ASCII symbols and what they're called.

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Sadly, a lot of these characters have multiple names, some of which are more or less popular depending on things like how old the speaker is, and what side of the Atlantic they are living on.

I found a table in this blog post, which has a lot of the names. It shows which are (in the author's opinion) Britishisms and which are the most common names for each. The problem is saying that authoratatively would probably take some kind of international study. Anything less would just be emphasising the Author's own background.

For instance, she says calling [] "square brackets" is a British usage. I've never been more than a couple hundred miles outside the USA, and that's what I've always called them. Her first listed name, "Box" I've never heard anybody use.

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Windows character map (just click a character, and look in the status bar at the bottom of the application window)

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By far the most complete and authoritative listing of special characters is the Unicode character database.

And be sure to check out the rest of the Unicode website.