It seems to me that this level of ambiguity is characteristic of most dictionary definitions, regardless of the language. (If anything, the J dictionary is more precise than other dictionaries I've used.)
-- Raul On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 4:44 PM, Henry Rich <[email protected]> wrote: > I agree with your analysis. I think the current behavior of $!.f makes > sense & is correct. I can understand why 1$'' is an error & that 1$!.''5 > should be different. > > I disagree only in whether the Dictionary describes the behavior. Let us > say the English could be argued either way, which means the text is failing > in its mission to define the language. > > Henry Rich > > > On 4/23/2013 4:36 PM, Raul Miller wrote: >> >> Oh! I had not paid attention to $!.n >> >> But, basically, it's similar to take ({.) - it uses y for any cells >> specified there, and uses fill after that. (I had not paid attention >> and thought that fill was only for the empty y case) >> >> That said, given this behavior, I'm still not seeing why there should >> be anything special about empty y for $!.n - we use n to specify the >> fill, should it really matter that y was empty and the entire thing is >> fill? >> >> Taking a step back, the unadorned x$y case says that y is the data and >> x is the shape, and it's an error if we have a non-empty shape but we >> have not specified any data. The x$!.n y case is different because we >> have specified the data - that spec is split across n and y, and n has >> a special case handling if it's empty instead of being an atom. In >> other words, it seems to me that the motivation for the 1$'' error is >> absent from the 1$!.'' '' case. >> >> You clearly have a different perspective on this from me, and it's >> entirely possible that I've overlooked something else important for >> this situation, but "I still don't get it". >> >> Thanks, >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
