Sorry to hijack the thread, but since I stumbled over this problem myself
(in the same context) and didn't know about the `symbol("A")` syntax, this
seems like an appropriate place to ask:
In the dataframe I was working with, I had one column named "R", and
another which I wanted to name "<R>". Using :R was no problem, but it's not
possible to refer to :<R> at all. (Try it in the REPL - it parses it as an
incomplete expression, and if I add something after I get an error "R not
defined"...)
I think it's cool that it's possible to define symbols from arbitrary
strings using e.g. `symbol("<R>")`, but it's kind of clunky that you can't
refer to them with the colon syntax once they're defined. Is there a way
around this, or do I have to simply "deal with it"? =)
// T
On Thursday, May 1, 2014 7:24:05 AM UTC+2, Ivar Nesje wrote:
>
> Symbols in Julia is a special form of strings that are faster for some
> operations (like comparisons) and much slower for others. Julia uses
> symbols internally to represent variable names.
>
> You create a symbol from a string with the symbol("A") function, or the :A
> syntax.
>
