You can finesse it by focussing on items instead of saying list of items. Talking about list of items has other potential problems when the number of items is 0.
The dictionary says this in section II a http://www.jsoftware.com/help/dictionary/dicta.htm A cell of rank one less than the rank of b is called an item of b; an atom has one item, itself. If I need to, I would say things like, Items are important; many verbs in J such as the dyads i. and { and the monad /: are defined on items. without ever saying "list of items". ----- Original Message ----- From: Henry Rich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wednesday, April 4, 2007 4:33 pm Subject: RE: [Jgeneral] Need a word for a non-atomic array > > So, the question is, how often do you need to say > > "all arrays other than atoms"? My guess is, not > > very often. Less often in J than in APL with > > the concept of prefix agreement in J. > > Not often, I agree. But I have a few phrases that I > think every J programmer would do well to commit to > memory, and one of those is > > An array is a list of its items. > > which unfortunately isn't true of an atom. So now > I have to water down the phrase. Ecch. > > The phrases suggested so far are accurate but lack zip. > > Since atom = 'a-' not + 'tom' divide , i. e. that which cannot > be divided, I could just use 'tom' to refer to a > non-atomic/composite/higher-order array. That has zip. > But no one would understand, and like Roger says, this is > not a frequent-enough need to introduce a new term for. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
