In API documentation, and sometimes even used in discussions here on Stack Overflow, I sometimes see the pound (#) character used instead of the dot (.) as the separator between the class name and the method name. For example:
Settings#maxPageSize
I'm wondering what this usage means, and where it comes from?
I've always thought that the distinction is that Settings.maxPageSize seems to imply that you can actually write just that (i.e. that it is a static method), and that the pound is there to denote that it is just a reference to a method, not a piece of code that you can execute.
Although I could be totally wrong about this =)
So for static methods, you could actually reference them Settings.maxPageSize, but for instance methods, you'd have the option of coming up with a new convention, such as Array#sort to denote that something special is going on, or, to achieve the same completeness, you'd have to write
myArray.sort // when myArray is of the type Array
EDIT
Amadan's reply seems to confirm my interpretation, with the exception that Settings.maxPageSize is not used for static methods either; rather, that would be Settings::maxPageSize, and . being reserved entirely for example code, which makes sense to me.
Assuming you mean Ruby (which is the first language that I can think of with such conventions), it is explained here:
Why are methods in Ruby documentation preceded by a hash sign?
