Thank you very much for this. I remember having a very hard time finding good, easy-to-use documentation as a beginner. One page that I used often was
Perhaps it could serve as inspiration / reference for our documentation?
Louis Also noticed that the “Find”, “Encode” and “Decode” are defined in two different places of the file, with slightly different wording.
On Apr 16, 2017, at 16:19, Alexey Veretennikov < address@hidden> wrote:
Hi Juergen, Elias,I've converted documentation from GNU APL Emacs mode with permission ofElias to the format proposed by you.I've only added additional 2nd argument with the plain symbol/text ofthe function/operator to make it easier to parse/lookup.I've not reviewed this documentation, just converted it to this formatand fixed naming conventions.Please note what this is just a beginning and I hope myself andcommunity will work on this file further and hopefully continuously,refining the open GNU APL documentation.<Help.def>Juergen Sauermann <address@hidden> writes:Hi again,
one more thing. In the IBM documentation the functions are usually denoted in a form like this:
Z←L+R using Z for the result and L and R for the left and right value arguments.
The ISO standard (also mainly written by IBM uses:
Z←A+B using Z for the result and A and B for the left and right value arguments.
My personal preference used to be:
R←A+B using R for the result and A and B for the left and right arguments. I guess this was from
Gilman/Rose, but I am not sure.
The GNU source code uses Z, A, and B as well as LO and RO for the left and right function arguments of
operators.
The info apl also uses A and B. I would therefore like to prose (objections welcome) to use the Z←A f B
for functions
and Z←A (LO op RO) B for e.g. dyadic operators.
Best Regards,
Jürgen Sauermann
On 04/11/2017 08:20 PM, Juergen Sauermann wrote:
Hi,
it would be good if someone could provide the help texts. Ideally as a macro called help_def() like
this:
help_def(valence, function, short_decription, long_description)
with: valence: number (0 for niladic, 1 for monadic, or 2 for dyadic)
function: String literal or just the text
short_description: String literal or just the text
long_decription: String literal or just the text
Please no comma or ; at the end of the macro, and one line per macro (no \ continuation).
Using a macro as opposed to instantiating struct has the advantage that it is easier to integrate into
the C++ code of GNU APL.
It is also easier to read and makes it possible to omit the "" (for function and short_description). Have
a look at the files with
extension .def in the GNU APL src directory to see how this type of macro is being used. Like
src/SystemVariable.def
which packs together figgerent properties of ⎕-Variables from which later on the )HELP texts for the
⎕-variables is derived.
For example:
help_def(1, "+B", Conjugate, "Returns the conjugate of B")
help_def(2, "A+B", Add, "Returns the sum of A and B")
Finally it would be good if whoever provides this is willing to release it under the GPL like all other GNU
APL code.
So all the help_def macros should go into a single file, say Help.def with the usual GPL text at the
beginning and
whoever has provided it as the Copyright holder.
I will then be happy to change the )HELP command to display the texts provided.
Thanks,
Jürgen
On 04/11/2017 04:34 PM, Alexey Veretennikov wrote:
Hi,
Indeed I was also thinking on creating such a documentation even in terms of notes for myself. I
don't always use Emacs for GNU APL (I run it on a device where I'm not able to compile emacs
but fine to compile GNU APL), so I would be happy to read this documentation from within the
interpreter, for example using like
]help ⍣
or
]help ⎕FX
Br,
/Alexey
2017-04-11 10:22 GMT+02:00 Elias Mårtenson <address@hidden>:
The Emacs mode for GNU APL contains a (small) reference manual. Really nothing more
than a short paragraph on most system functions, enough for the integrated documentation
features to work. It's been pointed out to me that it would be nice if the documentation was
more complete, particularly with examples of the use of each function in addition to the
abstract explanation as to what it does.
Now, I feel that this documentation doesn't really belong in the Emacs mode. It belongs in
GNU APL itself. Emacs should simply access this from the APL runtime when needed,
Thus, I would like to suggest creating an integrated reference documentation inside GNU
APL itself. We could start with what I have in the Emacs mode, and then add more.
The following file contains the current documentation in the Emacs mode:
Each element contains three strings:
* Invocation type (monadic, dyadic, etc)
* Name of the function
* One-line summary of the function
* (optional) Longer description
There are two questions:
1 Is anybody willing to help out with expanding in the reference documentation?
2 For Jürgen, are you willing to put this into GNU APL itself instead of keeping it in the
Emacs mode?
Regards,
Elias
-- Br,/Alexey
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