What ⟶ means
Usually "maps to" or "goes to." It joins a function's domain to its target, a transformation to its result, or one step of a process to the next. The extra length gives wide expressions on both sides room to breathe.
Arrows as diagram signs are older than this notation: a 1737 French engineering treatise already used them to show water flow and wheel rotation. Mathematicians took up arrow notation mostly in the first half of the twentieth century.
Don't confuse it with
1Questions people ask
1Why does ⟶ look different in different fonts?
Because the font draws it. Shaft length, stroke weight and spacing vary between fonts; the character and its meaning stay the same.
How to type ⟶
Windows (Word)
Alt+XType 27F6, then Alt+X to get ⟶.
Windows
Win+Rrun charmap for the full table, or use the emoji picker's Ω symbols tab (Win + .).
macOS
Control+Command+SpaceOpen the character viewer and search “long rightwards arrow”.
Linux
Ctrl+Shift+UType 27f6, then Enter or Space.
HTML
⟶CSS
\27F6LaTeX
Type \longrightarrow in math mode.
Codes and encoding1 code points
HTML decimal
⟶
HTML hex
⟶
CSS content
content: "\27F6";
Each escape is closed by the next backslash; a trailing space is needed before a literal hex digit.
URL encoded
%E2%9F%B6
1
On screen
1
Code points
1
JS .length
3
UTF-8 bytes
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.