51.12 You Don't Have Enough Smileys?
Unless you've been living in a cave with no Internet access,
you've seen those "smiley faces" or "emoticons" in
electronic mail (
1.33
)
(and in this book!).
In case you haven't seen electronic smileys,
they're like those awful yellow smiley face buttons that were so common
in the early 1970s, but with a new twist.
The twist is literal: they're printed
sideways, like this:
(At first you have to turn your head sideways to see the face, but
eventually you get used to reading them.
Then you have trouble
reading them only when you turn your head!)
The standard smiley printed above is used to mean "don't take this
too seriously."
Then there's the frowning face used to indicate that
something makes you sad:
How about this one?
That translates as "Omigod!" (done after
Call smiley with no arguments, and it will give you a random smiley symbol, plus interpretation:
% Type smiley with a smiley face as an argument, and you'll get possible interpretations (and an attribution for the explanation, if available). Because most smileys have bizarre characters that need to be protected from the shell, it's a good idea to quote ( 8.14 , 8.15 ) them:
%
Type - , |
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