Does - and -- have the same meaning?

[etalns]

In writing, do - and -- both serve as the same thing? Or do they have differing uses?

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

What specific use?

3 - 3 = 0, 3 -- 3 = 6

 

[Mo0o]

Is -- used in regular writing?

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
Is -- used in regular writing?

usually the single dash is a hyphen and a double dash is a mario kart variant

 

[bersl2]

The single dash is a minus and a hyphen. The double dash (en dash) is technically a range indicator. The triple dash (em dash) is a punctuation mark that is used like parentheses, but stronger; it's my favorite punctuation mark---along with the semi-colon, that is.

 

[esun]

I use a single hyphen for ranges along with normal hyphenation. I use the double hyphen to indicate a normal dash, as in the long pause in the middle of a sentence. I've never used a triple hyphen or seen it used. It's arguable whether this is necessarily correct, but it's the convention I follow.

 

[NiteWulf]

Keyboards don't typically have a dash key so a double hyphen is a dash for those who don't want to look it up on character map. (Alt+0151 BTW).

That's in computer text, though. The only thing I see on Wikipedia for it is "Two hyphen-minus characters ( -- ) are used on some programs to specify "long options" where more descriptive action names are used. This is a common feature of GNU software."