Delimiter

What Does Delimiter Mean?

A delimiter is a unique character or series of characters that indicates the beginning or end of a specific statement, string or function body set.

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Delimiters are used in programming languages to specify code set characters or data strings, serve as data and code boundaries and facilitate the interpretation of code and the segmentation of various implemented data sets and functions.

Techopedia Explains Delimiter

Software programs include multiple data streams, functions and conditions. Programming languages use delimiters in different coding scenarios to determine specific type and instruction boundaries. Because delimiters – such as commas and full stops – define different condition types, the delimiter concept is very similar to the English language.

Delimiter examples include:

  • Round brackets or parentheses: ( )
  • Curly brackets: { }
  • Escape sequence or comments: /*
  • Double quotes for defining string literals: ” “
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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…