what is gt??

[Pal Sudarshan]

Howdy,

   QUESTION: In the code below, what does gt stand for?
 
   // This code gives compile-time errors but that is not my concern
   public class Test
   {
      public static void main(String[] args)
      {  
         int k = i > // what is gt? What does it stand for?
         System.out.print(k);
      }
   }

[Pal Sudarshan]

hmm...
> didn't get posted.

Here is another try at the code

   // This code gives compile-time errors but that is not my concern
   public class Test
   {
      public static void main(String[] args)
      {  
         int k = i & gt; // what is gt? What does it stand for?
         System.out.print(k);
      }
   }

[Corey McGlone]

Hmmm, I'm not sure. In the context in which it is posted, gt (as well as i) looks like an undeclared variable.

However, I wonder if you found this on some online mock exam or some such thing. In HTML & g t ; (without spaces between them) is interpreted as a greater than sign (>) . It's possible you simply ran into an error in someone's HTML.
[ July 29, 2004: Message edited by: Corey McGlone ]

[Pal Sudarshan]

It is a modified example of Prof K's exam. I am not sure if I can post that on there. Is > some kind of escape sequence?

[Pal Sudarshan]

This post is converting '>' to '>'. Is '>' an escape sequence?

[Pal Sudarshan]

Here is another example:

 
for (int i=0; [B]i<[/B]10; i++) {
   // do something
}
 
QUESTION: what is lt? in the above code snippet?

[Corey McGlone]

You see, there are special character codes for use in HTML. If you put these characters together, without spaces between them, they'll be converted into something else:

& lt; --> <
& rt; --> >
& amp; --> &

etc. etc. etc.

There are a lot of these special codes for HTML. My guess is that you ran into a code that was poorly formed (like the one's I've written above) and, instead of seeing the character displayed, you saw the messed up sequence of characters.

I'm not certain, but that's what it looks like to me. In your original example, you had "& gt;". Well, if you take out that space, you'd get > instead.

If you can get at it, grab the HTML source for that question and post it here. Perhaps we can decipher what it's supposed to be from that.

[Pal Sudarshan]

Thank Corey. I think you are correct. The code would only make sense if these were special symbols.