What does "ampersand" mean in programming?

ampersand is one of the most common terms in software development. This guide explains what it means, how it is used in practice, and why it matters, with real examples from the developer world.

Definition

The & character. In programming, it is used as a bitwise AND operator, a reference operator in C/C++, and to combine query parameters in URLs (e.g. ?foo=1&bar=2).

Example

"Use & in the URL to separate query parameters: ?page=1&limit=20."

Related terms

pipe
operator

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