Asterisk

An asterisk (*) is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a star, (Latin astra). Typographers call it a splat (This may derive from the "squashed-bug" appearance of the asterisk on many early line printers). Computer scientists often pronounce it as star (as, for example, in the A* algorithm).

Uses of the asterisk include:

• In written text, the asterisk is used to call out a footnote or otherwise mark something.
• In linguistics, an asterisk next to a word may represent a nonstandard usage or a historically reconstructed word.
• In computing, the asterisk is sometimes used as a wildcard, meaning that it stands for one or more unspecified characters.
• Many programming languages and calculators use the asterisk as a symbol for multiplication.
• In Unix and Perl, the asterisk is often used as a Kleene star, which means it stands for zero or more copies of the preceding regular expression.

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In computer programming, the asterisk corresponds to Unicode and ASCII character 42, or 0x002A.

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Not to be confused with Asterix, the character of children's comic books.