The design and implementation of an APL dialect, ELI

ABSTRACT

ELI is an APL dialect that uses ASCII characters. It has a workspace based programming environment: all primitives of APL1[3] and control structures. It has no nested arrays or defined operators. Instead, it has user-defined data structures, and defined functions can take functions (in addition to variables) as parameters. ELI preserves the simplicity of APL1 while modestly extends it. The ELI interpreter is implemented on Windows using Visual C++, which connects to MFC to provide many GUI functions for the Window platform. The core interpreter consists of a parser, a tree-executor, and a module implementing all primitive functions. Currently the implementation also provides a function editor and the ability to save/load workspaces.

REFERENCES

• 1: Mike Blaszczak, Professional MFC Visual C++5, Wrox Press Ltd., Birmingham, UK, 1997
• 2: James A. Brown , Sandra Pakin , Raymond P. Polivka, APL2: at a glance, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1988
• 3: International Organization for Standardization, ISO Draft Standard APL, APL Quote Quad, vol,14, No.2, December 1993.
• 4: K. Iverson, Dictionary ofJ: 3 Version 5, Iverson Software, Toronto, 1992.
• 5: Kathleen Jensen , Niklaus Wirth, Pascal-User Manual and Report, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., Secaucus, NJ, 1975
• 6: Brian W. Kernighan , Dennis M. Ritchie, The C programming language, Prentice Hall Press, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1989
• 7: A. Whitney, K, Vector, Vol.10, No.1, 74-79, July 1993.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications

          Nouns: APL

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.3 Language Constructs and Features
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Interpreters

General Terms:
Design, Languages