{"action":"created","issue":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/9945","labels_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/9945/labels{/name}","comments_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/9945/comments","events_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/9945/events","html_url":"https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/9945","id":55701241,"number":9945,"title":"Backtick quotes for symbols","user":{"login":"alyst","id":348591,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/348591?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst","html_url":"https://github.com/alyst","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/alyst/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"labels":[],"state":"open","locked":false,"assignee":null,"milestone":null,"comments":3,"created_at":"2015-01-28T01:26:07Z","updated_at":"2015-01-28T03:00:10Z","closed_at":null,"body":"At the moment to generate non-standard symbols in Julia (e.g. with whitespace), one has to write `symbol(\"a b\")`. R uses backtick quotes for similar purposes, and that is much more concise. The typical use case is to refer to a dataframe column with non-standard characters in its name (e.g. imported from CSV/XLS file).\r\nIt would be nice to use backticks to quote symbols in Julia as well, but backticks are currently reserved for command interpolation. What if, instead of backticks, commands would be specified as `sh\"<cmd>\"` or `cmd\"<cmd>\"`, and backticks would be granted to symbols (given it's a more generic and frequent use case)?\r\nThe use of backticks for commands was inspired by Unix shell, but, in fact, it's a little bit misleading as backquoting a command in Julia doesn't execute it, as in shell. `sh\"<cmd>\"` alternative could be naturally extended to the other external scripts, e.g `perl\"...\"`, `lua\"...\"` etc."},"comment":{"url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/comments/71773181","html_url":"https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/9945#issuecomment-71773181","issue_url":"https://api.github.com/repos/JuliaLang/julia/issues/9945","id":71773181,"user":{"login":"JeffBezanson","id":744556,"avatar_url":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/744556?v=3","gravatar_id":"","url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson","html_url":"https://github.com/JeffBezanson","followers_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/followers","following_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/following{/other_user}","gists_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/gists{/gist_id}","starred_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/starred{/owner}{/repo}","subscriptions_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/subscriptions","organizations_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/orgs","repos_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/repos","events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/events{/privacy}","received_events_url":"https://api.github.com/users/JeffBezanson/received_events","type":"User","site_admin":false},"created_at":"2015-01-28T03:00:10Z","updated_at":"2015-01-28T03:00:10Z","body":"There is a lot to be said for using `cmd\"...\"` for commands, but in that case I think there are probably several potential uses for backticks that would have higher priority. We could also add `sym\"a b\"` for symbols."}}