Questions and Answers

Why Register a Symbol?
To ensure that each application is installed in a unique environment, a unique registered developer symbol should be obtained by each application developer. The developer symbol (RDS) should be used to name the application directory and to resolve file/variable conflicts that might arise during application installation or runtime.

How Long Can a Symbol Be?
A registered developer symbol is a four-character string such as "WXYZ", and is chosen by the developer. Due to the nature of AutoCAD® symbol table names, which are currently limited to 31 characters in length, and given the large number of developers and applications needing symbols, four characters is the appropriate length.

Is the Registered Symbol Case Sensitive?
No, the registered symbol is not case sensitive so registering the symbol "WXYZ" also reserves all it's case permutations, such as the strings "Wxyz" and "WxyZ". This is needed because developers will be expected to use different case combinations for different situations.

Am I Restricted to Certain Characters?
For portability, restrict the characters in your symbol to only those that are permitted in file names of the operating system to be used, and don’t use characters with special marks, such as umlauts or accents.