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Stack OverflowCorrect pronunciation of `:=`
[+59] [0] Jørn E. Angeltveit
[2011-05-12 08:56:02]
[ delphi pronunciation ]
[ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5975621] [DELETED]

This is probably a very lame question, but what is the correct pronunciation of := in Delphi?

How would you say:

A := 5;

if A = 5 then
  B := TMyClass.Create;

I think I've heard "A equals 5", and "5 is assigned to A", and "A is set to 5" for values, but I'm not sure if either of these are any good. For the reference assignment I think "B refers to a new instance of TMyClass" is the correct way? Or should it be "points to" instead?

I believe that a well established way of describing programming statements is important for the community. It makes it easier to cooperate and interact.

Feel free to add other programming structures to this question. We can make this a community wiki if the topic is of interest.

(7) I always mentally verbalized it as "set equal": : (set), = (equal). But as far as I know I just made that up - Factor Mystic
As stated in a next answer, "variable A is assigned with the value 5" - umlcat
How about: "set A to 5"? - Mackie Messer
Vote to close, not a real question (better served on somebody's blog). - sixlettervariables
Not Delphi, so I'm not posting this as an answer, but I've always read it as "is set equal to". AFAIK I made that up, though. - msh210
I've always just said "colon equal" when talking about := in general, although i'm not sure if there's a Delphi-specific convention. - crazy2be
By the way, shouldn't this have been created as community wiki? By the number of replies I'd say it was of interest... You just got 51 upvotes though - nice :p - David M
@David M: I really can't believe that this is the second best rated Delphi answer ever! Thats hilarious :) I expected this to be a lame, quick and dirty question, but I'm obviously not the only one wondering about this. As I've stated: I don't mind if this turns into a cw, and I've actually encouraged others to add other pronunciation-issues to the question so that it actually turns into a cw. Due to the new cw-restriction-policy that the SO-folks have implemented, I can't make this a cw myself and I'm not sure anymore if the SO-folks rally wants this to be a cw or not? - Jørn E. Angeltveit
@David M: BTW, I have called for moderator attention on the cw-issue... - Jørn E. Angeltveit