The double-quote is the 'rank' conjunction. In the use here, it means that the verb applies to rank zero, i.e. scalar, elements of its argument.
Rank is one of the important, general things to understand about J. Your question about how you would have found this yourself is a good one: we have talked about this very question repeatedly in our J group here in New York. Here's my suggestion based on what we've uncovered about the J documentation. Start with the Vocabulary page in the help system if you need to look up a particular symbol. Everything about the language is here on one page though this is both a good and bad thing. It's good because the compactness makes it simple to look over the whole thing to find a particular symbol; it's bad because the density of information combined with the sparsity of explanation on this page can be overwhelming. However, this page is like a table of contents - it allows you to find things: explanations are only a click away. Another very useful thing for a beginner to know about the vocabulary page is that very helpful explanatory material immediately precedes it. Back up from this page by clicking on the double 'less-than' symbols "<<" at the top or bottom. You'll find about a dozen very helpful, general explanatory pages that set up a framework for much of the subsequent documentation. You could also start at the beginning of the dictionary by clicking on "Dic" at the top of the help page - this will get you to the same general explanations and eventually to the Vocabulary page. Hope this helps. On 3/30/07, Terrence Brannon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Part 8/13 of Lab: An Introductory Course in J has this code: myverb =: dyad : '2 * x >. y'"0 NB. Create a custom verb: double the larger' I would like to know what the double quote mark and zero are doing after the quoted expression. The tutorial did not explain this. Some feedback on how I could've discovered this myself is appreciated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
-- Devon McCormick, CFA ^me^ at acm. org is my preferred e-mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
