Since Haskell allows many symbols in constructor and variable names that C compilers or assembly might not allow (e.g. :, %, #) these have to be encoded using z-encoding. The encoding is as follows. See compiler/GHC/Utils/Encoding.hs and $1535 for encoding/decoding implementations.
Tuples
Decoded
Encoded
Comment
()
Z0T
Unit / 0-tuple
There is no Z1T
(,)
Z2T
2-tuple
(,,)
Z3T
3-tuple
...
And so on
Unboxed Tuples
Decoded
Encoded
Comment
There is no Z0H
(# #)
Z1H
unboxed 1-tuple (note the space)
(#,#)
Z2H
unboxed 2-tuple
(#,,#)
Z3H
unboxed 3-tuple
...
And so on
Alphanumeric Characters
Decoded
Encoded
Comment
a-y, A-Y, 0-9
a-y, A-Y, 0-9
Regular letters don't need escape sequences
z, Z
zz, ZZ
'Z' and 'z' must be escaped
Constructor Characters
Decoded
Encoded
Comment
(
ZL
Left
)
ZR
Right
[
ZM
'M' before 'N' in []
]
ZN
:
ZC
Colon
Variable Characters
Decoded
Encoded
Mnemonic
&
za
Ampersand
|
zb
Bar
^
zc
Caret
$
zd
Dollar
=
ze
Equals
>
zg
Greater than
#
zh
Hash
.
zi
The dot of the 'i'
<
zl
Less than
-
zm
Minus
!
zn
Not
+
zp
Plus
'
zq
Quote
\
zr
Reverse slash
/
zs
Slash
*
zt
Times sign
_
zu
Underscore
%
zv
(TODO I don't know what the mnemonic for this one is. Perhaps relatiVe or diVide?)
Other
Any other character is encoded as a 'z' followed by its hex code (lower case, variable length) followed by 'U'. If the hex code starts with 'a', 'b, 'c', 'd', 'e' or 'f', then an extra '0' is placed before the hex code to avoid conflicts with the other escape characters.
