Glossary Of Apl Terms

Please have a glance at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)#APL_Glossary

It (the wikipedia table) has kilobytes of critcism on its Discussion page, is inconsistent, grammatically incorrect and should be replaced or removed.

The following is my suggestion for its replacement. It (preferably a better version) could be copied to wikipedia or the existing table could just be replaced with a link back here after we get it right. Either way this source can serve as Reference to avoid getting into the whole business with "[citation needed]" after every obvious statement of fact.

Please criticise it (the table below) mercilessly, add, amend, delete and let's get a consensus. Don't be frightened, you can hit [Preview] as many times as you like to get it right and you can always [Cancel] before [Save Changes] if you think you've messed it up.

Try to keep it as far as possible that terms used in a description are defined previously in the table. Try to keep it short enough that it doesn't attract criticism from others that we've just copied the language reference. Oh, and I think it'd be better left without examples. I've assumed: 'object', 'parameter', 'operation', 'assignment' & 'data' as being terms whose general meanings don't differ sufficiently across most computer languages to require a definition here.

Over and out! -- PhilLast 2009-06-11 17:45:40

APL Glossary

Term	Description
primitive	native to the language and referenced as a single character
defined	created by lexical definition by direct assignment or in an editor
derived	created by juxtaposition as a combination of more than one previously existing operation
argument	object passed as parameter to an operation
array	data valued object of zero or more orthogonal dimensions in which each item is a number, a character or another array
function	primitive, defined or derived operation that takes zero, one or two array valued arguments and may return an array valued result
operator	primitive or defined operation that takes one or two function or array valued arguments (operands) and derives a function result
operand	more specific name for argument when applied to those of an operator
niladic	accepting no arguments
monadic	accepting or requiring one argument or operand
monadic	(of a function) having its only argument on the right
monadic	(of an operator) having its only operand on the left
dyadic	accepting or requiring two arguments or operands
dyadic	(of a function) having two arguments: left & right
dyadic	(of an operator) having two operands: left & right
ambivalent	capable of monadic or dyadic behaviour
nomadic	used by some APLs as a synonym for 'ambivalent'
shape	(of an array) length of each dimension
type	(of an array) array of identical structure in which all numbers are zero and all characters are blanks
prototype	(of an array) the type of its first item
empty	(of an array) having one or more dimensions of length zero
rank	(of an array) number of dimensions
rank	(of a function) rank of arguments to which it applies
scalar	pertaining to rank zero
scalar	(of an array) having zero dimensions
scalar	(of a function) applying to scalars
vector	pertaining to rank one
vector	(of an array) having one dimension
vector	(of a function) applying to vectors
matrix	pertaining to rank two
matrix	(of an array) having two dimensions
matrix	(of a function) applying to matrices
simple	(of a scalar) a single character or number
simple	(of an array) composed entirely of simple scalars
nested	(of an array) having one or more items or a prototype which is not a simple scalar
depth	(of an array) the number of levels of nesting where an item or prototype is other than a simple scalar
strand	lexical juxtaposition of array valued names or expressions to form a larger, possibly nested, array
workspace	area of computer memory containing arrays and defined &/or derived operations or a file containing a preserved binary image of such

CategoryAboutApl