SHARP APL

SHARP APL
Developer	I.P. Sharp Associates
Released	1978
Withdrawn	around 1993
Array model	flat with boxes
Index origin	0 or 1
Function styles	defined functions
Numeric types	complex floats
Unicode support	none
File extensions	.saw, .saf, .sam
Platforms	S/370, x86
Operating systems	DOS/390, DOS, UNIX (AIX, Solaris), Linux
License	Free for personal use / Proprietary commercial software
Download	SIGAPL
Influenced by	APL\360
Influenced	SAX, J, A+, K

SHARP APL running under DOSBox

SHARP APL was a standalone version of APL offered by I.P. Sharp Associates (IPSA), who had previously offered APL interpretation as a timesharing service. IPSA employed many notable APL designers including Ken Iverson, and SHARP APL was the source of many developments in flat array theory.

Primitive functions

Arithmetic

Scalar

All scalar functions have rank zero.

Glyph	Monadic	Dyadic
+	Conjugate/Identity	Addition
-	Negate	Subtraction
×	Signum	Multiplication
÷	Reciprocal	Division
*	Exponential	Power
⍟	Natural Logarithm	Base-⍺ Logarithm
|	Magnitude	Residue
!	Factorial	Out-Of/Combinations
⌊	Floor	Minimum
⌈	Ceiling	Maximum
○	Pi Times	Circle functions
∧		And/Least Common Multiple (LCM)
∨		Or/Greatest Common Divisor (GCD)
⍲		Nand
⍱		Nor
~	Not	See Miscellaneous
?	Roll	See Non-scalar

Non-scalar

Glyph	Rank	Monadic	Ranks	Dyadic
⌹	2	Matrix inverse	∞ 2	Matrix divide
?		See Scalar	* *	Deal
⊤			∞ ∞	Encode
⊥			∞ ∞	Decode

Relational

Glyph	Rank	Monadic	Ranks	Dyadic
=		See Miscellaneous	0 0	Equals
≠		See Miscellaneous	0 0	Not Equals
<		See Structural	0 0	Less Than
≤			0 0	Less Than or Equal
≥			0 0	Greater Than or Equal
>		See Structural	0 0	Greater Than
≡			∞ ∞	Match
∊			0 ∞	Membership
⍷			∞ ∞	Find

Indexing

Glyph	Rank	Monadic	Ranks	Dyadic
@		See Miscellaneous	0 ∞	From
⍳	1	Count	1 0	Index Of
⍸			∞ ∞	Index
⍋	∞	Numeric Grade up	∞ ∞	Character Grade up
⍒	∞	Numeric Grade down	∞ ∞	Character Grade down

Structural

Glyph	Rank	Monadic	Ranks	Dyadic
⍴	∞	Shape of	1 ∞	Reshape
↑		See Miscellaneous	1 ∞	Take
↓	∞	Raze	1 ∞	Drop
<	∞	Enclose/Box		See Relational
⊃	∞	Conditional Enclose	∞ ∞	Link
>	0	Disclose/Open		See Relational
,	∞	Ravel	∞ ∞	Catenate
⍪	∞	Table	∞ ∞	Catenate-Down
⌽	1	Reverse	0 1	Rotate
⊖	∞	Reverse-Down	∞ ∞	Rotate-Down
⍉	∞	Monadic Transpose	0 ∞	Dyadic Transpose

Miscellaneous

Glyph	Rank	Monadic	Ranks	Dyadic
⊣	∞	Stop	∞ ∞	Left
⊢	∞	Pass	∞ ∞	Right
≠	∞	Nubsieve		See Relational
↑	∞	Nub		See Structural
=	∞	Nubin		See Relational
~		See Scalar	∞ ∞	Less
@	1	All		See Indexing
⍕	∞	Monadic Format	* ∞	Dyadic Format
⍎	*	Execute

Primitive Operators

Glyph	Operands		Ranks		Monadic Call	Dyadic Call
/		f	∞		Reduce
⌿		f	∞		Reduce-down
\		f	∞		Scan
⍀		f	∞		Scan-down
/		m	∞		Copy/Compress
⌿		m	∞		Copy-down/Compress-down
\		m	∞		Expand
⍀		m	∞		Expand-down
⊂		f	∞	rf lf	Swap
&		f	∞	∞ ∞	Select
⍤	f	g	mg	mg mg	On (close Over)
⍤	f	n	n	n n	Rank
⍤	m	g	mg	mg mg	Cut
⍥	f	g	mg	mg mg	Upon (close Atop)
¨	f	g	mg	mg mg	Under
¨	m	g	mg		With (Bind)
¨	f	n	mf
.	f	g	2	∞ ∞	Alternant	Inner-product
.	m	g		∞ ∞		Tie, Outer-product
.	f	m	mf		Ply

Implementation

Numeric types

SHARP originally supported only real numbers using double (8-byte) precision. Numbers were stored in one of three types:

• Boolean, with one bit per value
• Integer, with four bytes per value
• Floating, with eight bytes per value

SATN-40 describes the addition of complex numbers to SHARP APL.

SHARP APL Technical Notes

Features of SHARP APL were documented in "technical notes" issued by IPSA. These notes are numbered following the scheme "SATN-0". Earlier notes typically had no author listed. A pdf collection of SHARP APL Technical Notes is hosted at jsoftware.com, as are html transcriptions of some notes, linked in the table below.

Number	Issued	Revised		Author	Title
0	1976-01-01				SATN Introduction
1	1976-01-01				TASKID
2		5	1979-02-14		Control Messages
3	1976-01-01				⎕OUT
4		2	1978-04-01		N-tasks and B-tasks
5		2	1978-08-01		Batch APL
6	1976-01-01				Execute
7	1976-01-01				Latent Expression
8		2	1978-03-01		HSPRINT
9		1	1979-08-01	John D. Burger	Usage Inquiry System
10		2	1978-06-01		SORTREQ
11	1976-01-01				)RESET
12	1976-01-01				)COPY
13	1978-03-10				Early Warnings
14		2	1978-08-15		Package - A New Variable Type
15					Index
16	1976-04-20				File System Must-Write Buffers
17	1976-06-01				Formatting Primitive
18	1976-07-01				⎕FMT
19	1977-01-01				Fileprint
20		4	1978-06-01		System Variables, Session Variables and System Functions
21		1	1978-06-01		⎕WS and ⎕FD
22		2	1979-01-01	Bob Bernecky and Mike Symes	APL Worspace Transfer
23	1977-06-10	1	1978-07-15	Bob Bernecky	Comparison Tolerance (web)
24	1977-03-23				Symbol Table
25	1977-05-15				Extensions to Argument Passing
26	1977-09-10				Enhancements to the File System
28	1977-07-11				Terminal Control
29	1978-06-15				System Time and Timestamps
30	1979-01-01				Numeric Display
31	1979-02-01				Line Editing in SHARP APL
32	1979-03-30				Shared Variables
33	1979-03-26				Event Trapping
34	1980-08-15			Bob Bernecky	Replication
35	1980-08-15			Peter Wooster	Extended Upgrade and Downgrade
36	1980-04-20			Ken Iverson	Direct Definition
37		1	1982-06-01	John D. Burger	IBM 3270 User Guide
39	1981-06-01			Richard Lathwell	The SHARP APL S-task Interface
40	1981-06-20			Eugene McDonnell	Complex Numbers (web)
41	1981-06-20			Ken Iverson	Composition and Enclosure (web)
42	1982-04-01			Ken Iverson	Determinant-Like Functions Produced by the Dot-Operator (web)
43	1982-11-05			Peter Wooster	Improved Display for Enclosed Arrays and a New System Variable ⎕PS
44	1983-04-02			Robert C. Metzger	Enhancements to Event Handling
45	1983-05-02			Various	Language Extensions of May 1983
46	1983-08-05			Eric Iverson	Enhancements Provided in Update #1 to the May 1983 Release of SHARP APL
47	1983-10-01			Mike Symes	IBM 3270 User Guide (IDSH)
48	1983-11-30			John D. Burger	Workspace 1 HCPRINT