# How is a state of subscript notation in Julia 1.x?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Created:** [November 2, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101 "2018-11-02T20:32:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 15\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KZiemian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kziemian/32/9020_2.png) [@KZiemian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KZiemian)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/1 "2018-11-02T20:32:46Z")

</div>

I experiments with Julia subscript notation with 1.x version of language. It seems that is 30 or so available subscripts like A\_1, A\_2, A\_x, A\_schwa. I have impression that in versions 0.x this work different, but I can’t find these examples now.

Can someone explain to me how this looks now? I make small presentation about Julia and probably have time to find it myself.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mauro3](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mauro3/32/292_2.png) [@mauro3](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mauro3)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 8:34pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/2 "2018-11-02T20:34:09Z")

</div>

I don’t think this changed. All the subscripts which are in unicode are defined, which are not all though: [Unicode subscripts and superscripts - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_subscripts_and_superscripts#Latin_and_Greek_tables)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KZiemian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kziemian/32/9020_2.png) [@KZiemian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KZiemian)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 8:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/3 "2018-11-02T20:43:12Z")

</div>

I try to make A\_y subscript in IJulia notebook and that don’t work, even as in Unicode table is defined. But I both learning Julia 1.x and have new operating system, which works quite strange, so I don’t know if problem is in Julia 1.x rules, IJulia or something with OS.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/4 "2018-11-02T20:52:57Z")

</div>

> [@KZiemian](#):
>
> even as in Unicode table is defined

Unfortunately, it’s one of the missing subscripts in unicode — see the table on the Wikipedia page @mauro3 linked. Unicode simply has not defined superscript q or subscripts b, c, d, f, g, q, w, y, z. It’s all very silly.

See [GitHub - stevengj/subsuper-proposal: Draft proposal for additional sub/superscript characters in Unicode](https://github.com/stevengj/subsuper-proposal) for a draft proposal to the Unicode standards committee to try to rectify the situation.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ronis\_BR](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ronis_br/32/50999_2.png) [@Ronis\_BR](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Ronis_BR)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 8:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/5 "2018-11-02T20:54:38Z")

</div>

Some subscripts do not work in macOS either. I would really like the `_k` but I see an exclamation mark here.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/6 "2018-11-02T20:59:05Z")

</div>

You just need to install a better font. I think Unifont is what ends up displaying many of these glyphs on my Mac (as a fallback, I think).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KZiemian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kziemian/32/9020_2.png) [@KZiemian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KZiemian)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 10:04pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/7 "2018-11-02T22:04:58Z")

</div>

Thank you for pointing this out to me. I several times read “subscript” not “superscript” in this table and superscript A^y is defined. That is double silly, why subscripts are not compatible with superscripts?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/8 "2018-11-02T22:21:03Z")

</div>

As I understand it, each and every sup-/sub-script was independently argued-for and added in separate blocks for separate purposes. E.g., some might be for use with chemistry notations while others could be for phonetics. That’s why fonts don’t put them all at the same height or size, too.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![StefanKarpinski](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stefankarpinski/32/24_2.png) [@StefanKarpinski](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StefanKarpinski)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 10:52pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/9 "2018-11-02T22:52:38Z")

</div>

This is all because of whatever the Unicode Consortium decides. They have decided that “English letters” does not constitute a meaningful set of letters, so you have missing letters like `q`.

Please help with [https://github.com/stevengj/subsuper-proposal](https://github.com/stevengj/subsuper-proposal) to try to get this fixed in Unicode.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KZiemian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kziemian/32/9020_2.png) [@KZiemian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KZiemian)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/10 "2018-11-02T22:54:16Z")

</div>

I will do what I can.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![baggepinnen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/baggepinnen/32/693_2.png) [@baggepinnen](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/baggepinnen)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/11 "2018-11-07T19:17:53Z")

</div>

An interesting, but perhaps ambitious, project would be to mine relevant subsets (physics, stats, ML, optimization etc.) of arXiv for statistics on usage of sub/superscript in scientific articles.  
On the flip side, github could be mined for variables named `xx_i`, `x_2` etc.  
Could such statistics perhaps be useful to make the arguments for the proposal?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Paul\_Soderlind](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/paul_soderlind/32/1753_2.png) [@Paul\_Soderlind](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Paul_Soderlind)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2018, 8:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/12 "2018-11-07T20:10:17Z")

</div>

Probably could. However, just polling a few field experts might be a quicker and safer way.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KZiemian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kziemian/32/9020_2.png) [@KZiemian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KZiemian)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 12:51pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/13 "2018-11-21T12:51:23Z")

</div>

Main problem to me is: what we can do to make basic update to Unicode? Already proposed update will be good thing at least. Maybe not perfect for many application, but definitely good thing.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tamas\_Papp](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/tamas_papp/32/25949_2.png) [@Tamas\_Papp](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Tamas_Papp)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 1:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/14 "2018-11-21T13:03:59Z")

</div>

> [@KZiemian](#):
>
> what we can do to make basic update to Unicode?

1. Ask nicely. The best way to do that is a proposal like the above. This may be slow, but cheap.

2. Acquire enough shares in members of the [Unicode Consortium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_Consortium) enough for a majority vote. This may be faster, but rather expensive (of course we can sell them later and 🥳).

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KZiemian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kziemian/32/9020_2.png) [@KZiemian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/KZiemian)\
**Post date:** [November 21, 2018, 1:42pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-is-a-state-of-subscript-notation-in-julia-1-x/17101/15 "2018-11-21T13:42:37Z")

</div>

I will follow first point. I start next week, hopefully.