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6.2.3 Identifiers

In Malaga, names for variables, constants, symbols, and rules, and (see below for explanation) are called identifiers. An identifier may consist of uppercase and lowercase characters, the underscore ‘_’, the ampersand ‘&’, the vertical bar ‘|’, and, from the second character on, also of digits. Uppercase and lowercase characters are not distinguished, i.e., Malaga is not case-sensitive. Malaga keywords must not be used as identifiers. A variable name must start with a ‘$’, a constant name must start with a ‘@’. The same identifier may be used as variable name, constant name, symbol name, or rule name independently. Malaga can distinguish them by the context in which they occur.

Valid identifiers would be ‘Noun’, ‘noun’ (the same as the first), ‘R2D2’, ‘Vb_aux’, ‘A|G|D’, ‘_INF’. Identifiers like ‘2Noun’, ‘Verb.Frame’, ‘OK?’, ‘_~INF’ are not valid.