Key
Key (⌸
) is a primitive monadic operator which takes a dyadic function operand where specified keys group the indices or major cells of an argument. It was introduced in Dyalog APL version 14.0 and is commonly compared to SQL's GROUP BY statement.
Description
Monadically, key will group identical major cells together and applies the function operand f to each unique key, and the indices of the elements matching that key.
{⍺⍵}⌸'Mississippi' ┌─┬────────┐ │M│1 │ ├─┼────────┤ │i│2 5 8 11│ ├─┼────────┤ │s│3 4 6 7 │ ├─┼────────┤ │p│9 10 │ └─┴────────┘
In the dyadic case, key applies f to the elements of the right argument corresponding to the unique elements of the left.
'Mississippi'{⍺⍵}⌸'ABCDEFGHIJK' ┌─┬────┐ │M│A │ ├─┼────┤ │i│BEHK│ ├─┼────┤ │s│CDFG│ ├─┼────┤ │p│IJ │ └─┴────┘
In fact, the monadic case f⌸⍵
is equivalent to ⍵ f⌸ ⍳≢⍵
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