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Questions tagged [parentheses]

The symbols "(" and ")", commonly used in programming languages. Please use this tag only if the specific usage of these symbols is a relevant part of the question.

The parentheses "(" and ")" are special cases of brackets, along with square brackets ("[" and "]") and curly brackets (or braces) ("{", "}").

Parentheses (singular parenthesis) have many uses in most programming languages, such as:

  • indicate the arguments of a function call;
  • specify the order of evaluation/execution of expressions;
  • create lists/arrays/vectors.
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Format Negative numbers in parenthesis BUT NOT with $ symbol?

I have seen all over the internet to format a NEGATIVE double value with a parenthesis WITH a $ symbol ie. currency type. I am looking for a .NET format string, to format 12345.67 = 12,345.67 -12345.67 = (12,345.67)
user715993
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Do parentheses make a difference when determining the size of an array?

The following program prints the same number twice on gcc 4.8.2: #include int main() { char a[13]; printf("sizeof a is %zu\n", sizeof a ); printf("sizeof(a) is %zu\n", sizeof(a)); } According to this reddit post, gcc is not…
fredoverflow
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Scala methods with no arguments

In Scala there are two ways to define a method which takes no argument 1 def a=println("hello") 2 def a()=println("hello") These two methods are exactly same but (2) can be called with and without parentheses. Is there any special reason…
codecool
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C macros and use of arguments in parentheses

Example #define Echo(a) a #define Echo(a) (a) I realize there probably isn’t a significant difference here, but why would you ever want to include the a within parenthesis inside the macro body? How does it alter it?
rubixibuc
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Python generator expression parentheses oddity

I want to determine if a list contains a certain string, so I use a generator expression, like so: g = (s for s in myList if s == myString) any(g) Of course I want to inline this, so I do: any((s for s in myList if s == myString)) Then I think it…
Ari
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What is the meaning of parentheses in Haskell type signatures?

Take the type signature of fmap (the Functor method) as an example: (a -> b) -> f a -> f b How is that different from the following type signature? a -> b -> f a -> f b Is there even a difference between those two type signatures?
Trident D'Gao
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Indices of matching parentheses in Python

Is there a way to get indices of matching parentheses in a string? For example for this one: text = 'aaaa(bb()()ccc)dd' I'd like to get a dictionary with values: result = {4:14, 7:8, 9:10} which means that parentheses on index 4 and 14 are…
Peter Gubik
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Idiomatic use of parentheses in Ruby

array.include? 'foo' or array.include? 'bar' is a syntax error (unexpected keyword_or). Parentheses solve the problem, but as I'm new to Ruby I've no idea which of the following is considered more idiomatic: Option 1 array.include?('foo') or…
davidchambers
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What do parentheses () used on their own mean?

I read in learn you haskell that Enum members are sequentially ordered types ... Types in this class: (), Bool, Char ... Also it appears in some signatures: putChar :: Char -> IO () It is very difficult to find info about it in Google as…
cibercitizen1
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C# Regex match anything inside Parentheses

I want to match anything inside parentheses but the result must exclude the parentheses as well. Examples: Initialize(P90W) Brake(45X) Result: 990W 45X note results without the Parentheses. I've been trying to make this work but to no avail I…
Michael D. Irizarry
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SQL Parentheses use in an OR clause

Was wondering whether anyone would know why do we use the parentheses in this SQL: So, the format goes as follows: Name,location and department of the service of the employees whose name starts with A or B. (A rough translation from French). I…
angela
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parsing nested parentheses in python, grab content by level

Apparently this problem comes up fairly often, after reading Regular expression to detect semi-colon terminated C++ for & while loops and thinking about the problem for a while, i wrote a function to return the content contained inside an arbitrary…
justin cress
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How to remove nested parentheses in LISP

How can I remove nested parentheses recursively in Common LISP Such as (unnest '(a b c (d e) ((f) g))) => (a b c d e f g) (unnest '(a b)) => (a b) (unnest '(() ((((a)))) ())) => (a) Thanks
bubdada
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What is the reason to use parenthesis-less subroutine calls in Perl?

As per perldoc perlsub: The & is optional in modern Perl, as are parentheses if the subroutine has been predeclared. I notice that a lot of times, people use the fact that you can omit parenthesis when calling Perl subroutines (e.g., randomly…
DVK
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Why would the addition of parentheses in SQL query cause the results to change?

When I execute the following query, even though there are 11 records that match, none are returned as written. However, if I remove the parentheses on lines 6 and 9, all 11 records are returned as expected. 1 select obj_id, obj_title,…
Sam F.
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