symbol

declaration/definition

Syntax

symbol string+

Purpose

You can use the symbol declaration to declare an ordered set of symbols that can be invoked by their order in the sequence. These quoted strings usually consist of either a single character, to be used as a footnote indicator, or the format instruction used to represent such a character.

You use the "%y" format item to output the symbols defined in the symbol declaration. The following program outputs "c":

  symbol "a" "b" "c" "d" "e"
  
  process
      local integer foo initial {3}
      output "%y(foo)"

If the integer value is greater than the number of strings in the declaration, the strings are used, but duplicated for each pass through the list of strings. Integer values less than one are output in the same manner, but start with the last string in the declaration. Therefore 0 is converted to the last string, -1 to the next-to-last string, and so on.

The following program outputs "ddd":

  symbol "a" "b" "c" "d" "e"
  
  process
      local integer foo initial {14}
      output "%y(foo)"

Only one symbol can appear in an OmniMark program. Using the "%y" format item without a symbol declaration causes an error.