Fred, A note about novices and Dictionary: they do not mix together well. Dictionary is the ultimate source, but not necessarily a first, by design.
I believe that your expectation is based on an assumption that rank is an intrinsic property of a verb and that the rank conjunction changes that property. That's a common pitfall, mentioned in "JfC". The first part is true, but the second is not. Rank conjunction does not "attach a new rank" or "modify the rank property", it's just an ordinary conjunction, the same as you would say u=. 3 : 'y+1'&.> u i.3 +-+-+-+ |1|2|3| +-+-+-+ So it's not about ranks and explicit definitions, it's about conjuntions and verbs and the rules using explicit script (the : 0), which parses up to ending ")". To discover how would that work even if you don't have a dictionary, which is better, you can use the interactive mode and facilities f. (fix) dereferencing names and b. for rank. v=: 3 : 'y+1' v"1 f. 3 : 'y+1'"1 NB. so that's how to write a one-liner with rank 3 : 'y+1' b. 0 NB. rank of explicit verbs is infinite _ _ _ w=: 3 : 0 a=. 1 b=. y a+b ) w"1 f. NB. so that's how to write explicit with rank 3 : 0"1 a=. 1 b=. y a+b ) --- Fred Bone <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Fred Bone wrote: > > > Yes; perhaps I wasn't clear. I was talking not about > > > applying the verb with a given rank, but about defining > > > it. I eventually remembered the syntax, for example: > > > wossname =. 4 : 0 " 1 0 > > > I still can't find where this is documented. > And I still don't see how you can tell from just the parsing rules that > the rank will become the default rank for the verb whose definition is in > the following lines. Let alone that this is the way to go about it. > how is the novice to know that the construct with the : 0 form is not > foo =: 3 : 0 > blah blah blah > ) "1 0 > OTOH, if there had been an example in the Dictionary when I was looking > for one, I wouldn't have needed to try it ... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
