I-Beam (⌶
) is a primitive monadic operator that takes a numeric code as it's operand and derives an ambivalent function which provides a range of ad-hoc operations. This range covers non-primitive functions - for example: experimental features, interpreter-level control, access to the environment, and information about APL itself.
History
I-Beam was introduced in APL\360 by implementers to execute System/360 instructions from program control. The convenience of this lead to I-Beam becoming directly available to use by anyone.[1]
Mnemonics
In general, I-Beam's numeric operand isn't intended to be easily recalled. But some are given meaningful names.
One method is to devise a name from the Roman numeral letters I, V, X, L, C, D, and M[2]
I-Beam |
Numeral
|
Called Monadically |
CM (900)
|
Line Count |
LC (50100)
|
References
APL built-ins [edit]
|
Primitives (Timeline) |
Functions
|
Scalar
|
Monadic
|
Conjugate ∙ Negate ∙ Signum ∙ Reciprocal ∙ Magnitude ∙ Exponential ∙ Natural Logarithm ∙ Floor ∙ Ceiling ∙ Factorial ∙ Not ∙ Pi Times ∙ Roll ∙ Type ∙ Imaginary ∙ Square Root ∙ Round
|
Dyadic
|
Add ∙ Subtract ∙ Times ∙ Divide ∙ Residue ∙ Power ∙ Logarithm ∙ Minimum ∙ Maximum ∙ Binomial ∙ Comparison functions ∙ Boolean functions (And, Or, Nand, Nor) ∙ GCD ∙ LCM ∙ Circular ∙ Complex ∙ Root
|
Non-Scalar
|
Structural
|
Shape ∙ Reshape ∙ Tally ∙ Depth ∙ Ravel ∙ Enlist ∙ Table ∙ Catenate ∙ Reverse ∙ Rotate ∙ Transpose ∙ Raze ∙ Mix ∙ Split ∙ Enclose ∙ Nest ∙ Cut (K) ∙ Pair ∙ Link ∙ Partitioned Enclose ∙ Partition
|
Selection
|
First ∙ Pick ∙ Take ∙ Drop ∙ Unique ∙ Identity ∙ Stop ∙ Select ∙ Replicate ∙ Expand ∙ Set functions (Intersection ∙ Union ∙ Without) ∙ Bracket indexing ∙ Index ∙ Cartesian Product ∙ Sort
|
Selector
|
Index generator ∙ Grade ∙ Index Of ∙ Interval Index ∙ Indices ∙ Deal ∙ Prefix and suffix vectors
|
Computational
|
Match ∙ Not Match ∙ Membership ∙ Find ∙ Nub Sieve ∙ Encode ∙ Decode ∙ Matrix Inverse ∙ Matrix Divide ∙ Format ∙ Execute ∙ Materialise ∙ Range
|
Operators |
Monadic
|
Each ∙ Commute ∙ Constant ∙ Replicate ∙ Expand ∙ Reduce ∙ Windowed Reduce ∙ Scan ∙ Outer Product ∙ Key ∙ I-Beam ∙ Spawn ∙ Function axis ∙ Identity (Null, Ident)
|
Dyadic
|
Bind ∙ Compositions (Compose, Reverse Compose, Beside, Withe, Atop, Over) ∙ Inner Product ∙ Determinant ∙ Power ∙ At ∙ Under ∙ Rank ∙ Depth ∙ Variant ∙ Stencil ∙ Cut ∙ Direct definition (operator) ∙ Identity (Lev, Dex)
|
Quad names
|
Index origin ∙ Comparison tolerance ∙ Migration level ∙ Atomic vector
|