# The symbol used for open doors and windows

**URL:** <https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-symbol-used-for-open-doors-and-windows/16930>\
**Category:** The Garage\
**Created:** [October 8, 2018, 4:08pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-symbol-used-for-open-doors-and-windows/16930 "2018-10-08T16:08:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mummelpuffin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/mummelpuffin/32/3324_2.png) [@Mummelpuffin](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Mummelpuffin)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 4:08pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-symbol-used-for-open-doors-and-windows/16930/1 "2018-10-08T16:08:55Z")

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Looking on the wiki [here](http://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=Open_wood_door) and [here](http://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=Open_window), it appears as if the symbol for open doors and windows _used_ to be a slash `\` character, but in my game it’s instead represented by a single quote `'`. Also windows were blue in the wiki picture? Can someone please confirm that this is actually the default behavior and I didn’t somehow modify it myself? I honestly prefer having it as a slash `\` and it seems to make more sense (imo) so I really wonder why it changed (if it did.)

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**Author:** ![Eastwardrope91](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/eastwardrope91/32/3313_2.png) [@Eastwardrope91](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Eastwardrope91)\
**Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 11:12pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-symbol-used-for-open-doors-and-windows/16930/2 "2018-10-08T23:12:10Z")

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The characters change by the versions. Plus the wiki is outdated and wrong in some places. So take what it says with a grain of salt.

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**Author:** ![Zhilkin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/zhilkin/32/3749_2.png) [@Zhilkin](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Zhilkin)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2018, 6:55am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-symbol-used-for-open-doors-and-windows/16930/3 "2018-10-10T06:55:09Z")

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You better look into the [sources](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/data/json/terrain.json). Single quote (`'`) is used for all open doors and windows, for example:

```auto
    "type": "terrain",
    "id": "t_door_o",
    "name": "open wood door",
    "description": "A standard wooden door that doesn't look very resilient. It'd probably burn easily, too. This one is wide open.",
"symbol": "'",

```

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**Author:** ![Eastwardrope91](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/eastwardrope91/32/3313_2.png) [@Eastwardrope91](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Eastwardrope91)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2018, 4:22pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-symbol-used-for-open-doors-and-windows/16930/4 "2018-10-10T16:22:38Z")

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Why not use a tileset if the same character thing bothers you so much? Would simplify it. Might not be the same look you are going for though.

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**Author:** ![Narc](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.cataclysmdda.org/narc/32/2705_2.png) [@Narc](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Narc)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2018, 11:28am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/the-symbol-used-for-open-doors-and-windows/16930/5 "2018-10-12T11:28:18Z")

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I don’t remember \ (backslash) ever being the open door/window character. I was going to say it’s always been the ’ (single quote), but then I decided to search the project history, and found that in [the very first version of terrain.json](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/9f97fefed0bb73c3eb27e9244f188090e34cdcd7/data/json/terrain.json#L428-L429), it was a " (double quote), likely due to automatic conversion:

```json
        "name": "open wood door",
        "symbol": "\"",

```

I then went back to 0.1, looking for what it was [in the very first release of DDA](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/0.1/mapdata.h#L288):

```auto
{"open wood door", '\'', c_brown, 2, tr_null,
        mfb(flammable2)|mfb(transparent)|mfb(supports_roof)},

```

The same thing shows in Whales’s [first ever commit to the Cataclysm (not DDA!) repo](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/69ffbb2953c1e92a9b24d5380dabe7f26066223e/mapdata.h#L149):

```auto
{"open wood door", '\'', c_brown, 2,
	mfb(transparent)},

```

I’m purely guessing, but I think the wiki page creator (whether a person or a bot) misunderstood the backslash. The backslash is escaping the " or ’ so they don’t close the string/char literal, i.e., so that you can have the literal quote character be part of the quoted thing.

But in any case, it’s really only ever been a quote mark. Maybe a mod could be made to override a terrain symbol?