### 3.5.2 Special characters

The following characters and operators have special meanings:

`=`
  assignment
`{`, `}`
  parentheses for block programming
`(`, `)`
  in expressions, for indexed names and for argument lists
`[`, `]`
  access operator for strings, integer vectors, ideals, matrices, polynomials, resolutions, and lists. Used to build vectors of polynomials. Example: `s[3]`, `m[1,3]`, `i[1..3]`, `[f,g+x,0,0,1]`.
`+`
  addition operator
`++`
  increment operator
`-`
  subtraction operator
`--`
  decrement operator
`*`
  multiplication operator
`/`
  division operator. See Miscellaneous oddities, for the difference between the division operators `/` and `div`.
`%`
  modulo operator (`mod` is an alias to `%`): result is always non-negative
`^` or `**`
  exponentiation operator
`==`
  comparison operator equal
`!=` or `<>`
  comparison operator not equal
`>=`
  comparison operator larger than or equal to
`>`
  comparison operator larger
`<=`
  comparison operator smaller than or equal to
`<`
  comparison operator smaller. Also used for file input. See filecmd.
`!`
  boolean operator not
`&&`
  boolean operator and
`||`
  boolean operator or
`"`
  delimiter for string constants
```
  delimiter for name substitution
`?`
  synonym for `help`
`//`
  comment delimiter. Comment extends to the end of the line.
`/*`
  comment delimiter. Starts a comment which ends with `*/`.
`*/`
  comment delimiter. Ends a comment which starts with `/*`.
`;`
  statement separator
`,`
  separator for expression lists and function arguments
`\`
  escape character for `"` and `\` within strings
`..`
  interval specifier returning intvec. E.g., `1..3` which is equivalent to the intvec `1, 2, 3`.
`:`
  repeated entry. E.g., `3:5` generates an intvec of length 5 with constant entries 3, i.e., (3, 3, 3, 3, 3).
`::`
  accessor for package members. E.g., `MyPackage::i` accesses variable `i` in package `MyPackage`.
`_`
  value of expression displayed last
`~`
  breakpoint in procedures
`#`
  list of parameters in procedures without explicit parameter list
`$`
  terminates SINGULAR

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