A (programming language)

A
Paradigm	Array
Designed by	Arthur Whitney
Developer	Morgan Stanley
First appeared	A – 1985; 39 years ago; A – 1988; 36 years ago
Stable release	4.22-1 / March 27, 2008; 16 years ago
Typing discipline	Dynamic, strong
License	GNU General Public License
Filename extensions	.., . , .a, .m
Website	www.aplusdev.org
Major implementations
	A
Influenced by
	APL
Influenced
	K

A is a high-level, interactive, interpreted array programming language designed for numerically intensive applications, especially those found in financial applications.

History

In 1985, Arthur Whitney created the A programming language^[2] to replace APL.^[3] Other developers at Morgan Stanley extended it to A , adding a graphical user interface (GUI) and other language features. The GUI A was released in 1988.

Arthur Whitney went on to create a proprietary array language named K. Like J, K omits the APL character set. It lacks some of the perceived complexities of A , such as the existence of statements and two different modes of syntax.

Features

A provides an extended set of functions and operators, a graphical user interface with automatic synchronizing of widgets and variables, asynchronous executing of functions associated with variables and events, dynamic loading of user compiled subroutines, and other features. A runs on many Unix variants, including Linux. It is free and open source software released under a GNU General Public License. A newer GUI has not yet been ported to all supported platforms.

The A language implements the following changes to the APL language:

an A function may have up to nine formal parameters
A code statements are separated by semicolons, so a single statement may be divided into two or more physical lines
The explicit result of a function or operator is the result of the last statement executed
A implements an object called a dependency, which is a global variable (the dependent variable) and an associated definition that is like a function with no arguments. Values can be explicitly set and referenced in exactly the same ways as for a global variable, but they can also be set through the associated definition.

Interactive A development is primarily done in the Xemacs editor, through extensions to the editor. Because A code uses the original APL symbols, displaying A requires a font with those special characters; a font named kapl is provided on the web site for that purpose.

References

^ "A Reference: Appendix: Quick Reference". Archived from the original on 2020-02-24. Retrieved 2020-02-06.
^ "A – APL Wiki".
^ "A : History of A ". www.aplusdev.org. Retrieved 2019-01-18.^{[dead link]}

External links

Official website^{[dead link]}, aplusdev.org

[1] "A Reference: Appendix: Quick Reference". Archived from the original on 2020-02-24. Retrieved 2020-02-06.

[2] "A – APL Wiki".

[3] "A : History of A ". www.aplusdev.org. Retrieved 2019-01-18.^{[dead link]}

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