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Extending APL “optional arguments”

Published: 26 July 1982 Publication History

Abstract

Two types of APL arguments are defined—positional and optional. APL currently provides limited “optional argument” capabilities by optionally specifying the axis on which to operate for some primitives. Other current APL optional argument capabilities, defined as global keywords, and optional argument capabilities requiring an expansion of APL, defined as local keywords, are introduced and compared. When the values passed to a function do not change frequently between calls, local keywords are shown to increase the relevance, power and simplicity of APL.

References

[1]
Paul Berry, APL/360 Primer, IBM GH20-0689-1, Third Edition (August 1971), p. 4-5, Section 1.6, Power, Relevance and Simplicity in a Programming Language.
[2]
IBM OS/VS-DOS/VSE-VM/370 Assembly Language, GC33-4010-5, Sixth Edition (March 1979); Section K3B—Keyword Operands, p. 296-299; Keyword Parameters, 263, 265.
[3]
IBM OS/VS2 TSO Command Language Reference, VS2, Release 3.7, GC28-0646-4, Fifth Edition (June 1978); Keyword Operands, p.4; PROC statement, p. 309.
[4]
Script Reference Manual, (1980) Department of Computing Services, University of Waterloo; Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGAPL APL Quote Quad
ACM SIGAPL APL Quote Quad  Volume 13, Issue 1
September 1982
380 pages
ISSN:0163-6006
DOI:10.1145/390006
  • Editors:
  • W. H. Janko,
  • W. Stucky
Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 July 1982
Published in SIGAPL Volume 13, Issue 1

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