Delimiters

Delimiters are parentheses, braces, or other characters used to mark the start and end of subformulas. This formula has three sets of parentheses delimiting the three subformulas.

(z-z_0)^2 = (x-x_0)^2 + (y-y_0)^2

The delimiters do not need to match, so you can enter \( [0,1) \).

Here are the common delimiters:

Delimiter	Command	Name
(	(	Left parenthesis
)	)	Right parenthesis
\}	{ or \lbrace	Left brace
\{	} or \rbrace	Right brace
[	[ or \lbrack	Left bracket
]	] or \rbrack	Right bracket
⌊	\lfloor	Left floor bracket
⌋	\rfloor	Right floor bracket
⌈	\lceil	Left ceiling bracket
⌉	\rceil	Right ceiling bracket
⟨	\langle	Left angle bracket
⟩	\rangle	Right angle bracket
/	/	Slash, or forward slash
\	\backslash	Reverse slash, or backslash
|	| or \vert	Vertical bar
‖	\| or \Vert	Double vertical bar

The mathtools package allows you to create commands for paired delimiters. For instance, if you put \DeclarePairedDelimiter\abs{\lvert}{\rvert} in your preamble then you get two commands for single-line vertical bars (they only work in math mode). The starred version, such as \abs*{\frac{22}{7}}, has the height of the vertical bars match the height of the argument. The unstarred version, such as \abs{\frac{22}{7}}, has the bars fixed at a default height. This version accepts an optional argument, as in \abs[size command]{\frac{22}{7}}, where the height of the bars is given in size command, such as \Bigg. Using \lVert and \rVert as the symbols will give you a norm symbol with the same behavior.

• \left & \right		Automatically sized delimiters.
• \bigl & \bigr etc.		Manually sized delimiters.