21

What's the story behind the ::'s sometimes token name

T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

I'm mainly interested in knowing if

  1. This is an abbreviation for something else.
  2. This is a phrase in a language other than English, and if so what's the language and what's a rough translation.
  3. This is some obscure-to-me programming term.
  4. Drunk developers.
Peter Mortensen
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Alan Storm
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2 Answers2

37

From the PHP docs:

Paamayim Nekudotayim would, at first, seem like a strange choice for naming a double-colon. However, while writing the Zend Engine 0.5 (which powers PHP 3), that's what the Zend team decided to call it. It actually does mean double-colon - in Hebrew!

Chad Birch
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    _Paamayim Nekudotayim would, **at first**, seem like a strange choice for naming_ No, even knowing it's definition, it **always** seems like a strange choice. – chris-l Sep 22 '14 at 17:55
4

It's the scope resolution operator.

Klaus Byskov Pedersen
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