[Gambas-user] Gambas example question

[Fabricio Santos]

Viva Andy,

I was looking at this example in the Gambas help browser and I have a
question about it:

==================================
I suggest the following code. 

PRIVATE $hConn AS Connection

PUBLIC SUB GoConnect()
  DIM sName AS String
  TRY $hConn.Close
    sName = "fgda"
...
==================================

Is there a special reason for the variable name to include a $ sign? Or
is it just part of Gambas to accept a $ sign on any variable name and
you decided to use it there?

I have browsed the docs extensively and couldn't find an answer to this
question nor did I find general information on building identifier
names, which characters are allowed and the sort.

Although 12 years ago I wrote a compiler from scratch and am quite
familiar with the theory of building compilers I am not in a good enough
shape anymore to dive into the Gambas code and grammar to find all this
out so any help will be welcome.

Thanks,

-fs