Re:The Array Cast – A podcast about the array programming la...
by rscho on Thursday May 20, 2021 @03:18PM
(#27225765)
From the J docs: https://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dx005.htm
nub=: (i.@# = i.~) # ]
5!:2 <'nub'
+-------------------+-+-+
|+--------+-+------+|#|]|
||+--+-+-+|=|+--+-+|| | |
|||i.|@|#|| ||i.|~||| | |
||+--+-+-+| |+--+-+|| | |
|+--------+-+------+| | |
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Numbers (and character) are implemented as arrays with 0 dimensions. Text would be an array of characters with 1 dimension (the number of characters), and generally speaking the dimension of an array is a one dimensional list of non-negative integers. Many array languages also include an array type which is approximately the same as a C pointer to an array, with a bit of jargon thrown in to distinguish a reference to an array from the array itself.
Something like an SQL table in an array language would be implemented as a list of columns (rather than as a list of rows) and a corresponding list of column labels. This has some interesting benefits.
That said, functions in array language are typically not arrays (though they presumably would have a textual representation). So... not everything is an array.