Re: [Bug-apl] Supporting negative ranks for ⍤ operator

[Louis de Forcrand]

The three-item form is used if the associated function is ambivalent (applied to the P-cells of ⍵ if monadic, applied to corresponding Q-cells of ⍺ and R-cells of ⍵ if dyadic). I don't believe it is possible to define ambivalent functions in ISO APL however, so it is kind of redundant. It is probably left over from Sharp APL.

As to the negative rank, I believe that it is an obvious flaw in the standard. Being able to apply a function to the items of the argument is incredibly useful. Of course this is achievable like so:

{⍺ (f ⍤ (¯1+≢⍴⍺⍵)) ⍵} ⍝ without ⍺ for the monadic form

Now that I've checked, I'm pretty sure that GNU APL does support rank (negative or not), but not with all primitives. Try it out with ⊖ or +⌿ on a rank-3 or above array, and then with ]BOXING and ⊂ on the same array… looks like a bug to me.

The rank operator isn't easy to grasp, and it's surely harder to implement.

Good luck,

Louis

On 27 Apr 2016, at 13:14, Jay Foad <address@hidden> wrote:

Incidentally, it works like this in Dyalog and NARS2000 too, though
the Dyalog documentation doesn't mention the 3-item form.

Jay.

On 27 April 2016 at 09:02, Jay Foad <address@hidden> wrote:

Given g ← f⍤P Q R:
P is the monadic rank
Q is the left rank
R is the right rank

So:
g Y applies g to the P-cells of Y
X g Y applies g to the Q-cells of X and the R-cells of Y

The ⌽3⍴⌽y1 stuff is just a too-cute way of saying that you can specify
fewer than 3 values in the right operand, and:
R is shorthand for R R R
Q R is shorthand for R Q R