Tilde
Alternatively
referred to as the squiggly or twiddle, the tilde is a character ( ~ ) found on computer keyboards below the escape or ESC key and on the same key as the back quote that
resembles a squiggly line. In the picture to the right, is a graphic
representation of the tilde. Below are a few examples of how and when the tilde is used.
- In languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, the tilde is a diacritical mark that is placed over a letter such as 'a' and 'n' to help emphasize the letter.
- Shorten long file names in Microsoft Windows 95 above. For example, changing the "Program Files" directory to Progra~1.
- Access the console in programs and games such as Quake.
- In regular expressions, the tilde can be used for pattern matching.
- In C programming languages, the ~ represents a bitwise NOT.
- Get to the home directory on a Linux computer (for example: cd ~).
- In mathematics, ~ is used to indicate an approximate number.
- Access to the Tilda GTK+ terminal emulator.
- What are the Windows files with tildes?
- Computer keyboard keys and explanations.
- How do I get letters with accent marks in Microsoft Word?
Also see: Keyboard definitions