Elias' thread about docstrings got me to thinking about other function metadata.
One thing that might be nice to have is for APL to record the source location of a function's definition. If the function is defined in a file, record the path and the line number of the first line of the definition. If the function is defined from some other source, either record a suitable token that won't be confused for a filename or simply record nothing. The source location information could be exposed to APL programs via an extension to ⎕AT or via a new system function created for this purpose. Source location information could be used to implement a meta-dot command. Unlike an approach that requires use of a tags file (I'd be surprised if ctags or etags even works for APL code), the location information maintained by the APL session would be up-to-date and would correctly distinguish between a function loaded from a file and a function redefined from within the session. Finally, it'd be nice to expose a system function to allow update of the source location metadata for use by tools which need to programatically load APL code from a file. Note that capturing the source file location of a function definition is something that can't already be done in APL without writing APL equivalents of )LOAD, )COPY, )PCOPY, )IN, )PIN, etc. -- "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." Albert Einstein http://soundcloud.com/davidlamkins http://reverbnation.com/lamkins http://reverbnation.com/lcw http://lamkins-guitar.com/ http://lamkins.net/ http://successful-lisp.com/
