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Erlang Programming/Variables
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Variables in Erlang
Technically there are no variables in Erlang in the sense of multiple assignment. There are Dummy Variables which can take matching values in functions. Once matched their values do not change. Variables in erlang must start with a Capital letter from the Latin 1 character set.
Latin-1 have the following classifications in Erlang:
Decimal Example Type of character
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0 - 31 Control character
32 Space
33 - 47 Punctuation
48 - 57 0-9 Digit
58 - 64 Punctuation
65 - 90 A-Z Uppercase
91 - 96 Punctuation
97 - 122 a-z Lowercase
123 - 127 Punctuation
Decimal Example Type of character
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128 - 159 Control characters
160 - 191 - ¿ Punctuation
192 - 214 À - Ö Uppercase
× Punctuation
216 - 222 Ø - Þ Uppercase
223 - 246 ß - ö Lowercase
247 ÷ Punctuation
248 - 255 ø - ÿ Lowercase
Examples of variables
19> ß = 1.
** exception error: no match of right hand side value 1
20> Þ = a.
a
21> A = ß.
ß
Explanation
Þ is a capital letter so it can be a variable.
ß is not a capital letter so it can not be a variable, but it can be a symbol value.