I'd be comfortable if atoms were equivalent to 12 dimensional structures with a single element. I guess I need an example where the distinction matters before I can appreciate why it does.
----- Original Message ---- From: "Miller, Raul D" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Programming forum <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2006 8:15:30 PM Subject: RE: [Jprogramming] Words cell format -- shape of an atom Pascal Jasmin wrote: > why the shape of an atom isn't 1 is the paradox :) First off, please note that the shape is not the number of elements. The shape defines the dimensions. The number of elements is */shape Second off, note that shape is never 1 -- the shape of a one element list is ,1. In other words: shape is always a list with one element in the list for each dimension. And when you have a one element list, you have one dimension and that dimension is 1. Third off, note that there are other shapes which also contain a single element: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ... In other words a single atom is different from a list which contains a single atom. In other words, a matrix with one row and one column is a different kind of data structure than a list of numbers which contains only one number. Alternatively: the string data type (list of zero or more characters) is a different data type from the character data type (where you don't have a choice about how many characters are represented -- it's always that character). */$'1' 1 #$'1' 0 -- Raul ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
