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Associative Programming Language
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<h2 id="description">Description</h2> <p>APL consists of six statements, CREATE, INSERT, FIND, FOR EACH, REMOVE, and DELETE,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a>: p.85 and miscellaneous functions such as counting the number of members in a set, determining the length or type of an entity, or locating an entity by name.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a>: p.95 </p> <ul><li>Create is a synonym for Allocate. It causes storage to be allocated for a based variable. A file or set where the data is to be allocated may be specified.</li> <li>Delete is a synonym for Free. Delete frees a based variable and optionally removes it from all sets of which it is a member.</li> <li>Find locates an entity that is a member of a set or container based on specified conditions. An optional ELSE clause is executed if no entities are found.</li> <li>For Each heads a group of statements to be executed for all entities or sets matching a specified condition.</li> <li>Insert inserts an entity into a specified set. Optionally, the placement of the new entity relative to other elements of the set may be specified.</li> <li>Let sets a locator variable to reference a specified set.</li> <li>Remove removes an entity from a set.</li></ul> <h2 id="implementation">Implementation</h2> <p>APL statements were implemented as PL/I preprocessor macros, which translated into calls to the database manager. Later GM's <a href="/facts/Apple_(programming_language)/XMssM5zt">Apple</a> PL/I dialect supported APL directly in the language. </p> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Price, Carol (1978), "APL/VAAM" (PDF), NASA Conference Publication 2055: Engineering and Scientific Data Management, NASA, pp. 85–97 <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf" target="_blank">https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Bachman, Charles (January 2006). "An interview with Charles W. Bachman". ACM Oral History interviews. doi:10.1145/1141880.1141882. ISBN 978-1-4503-1771-9. Retrieved June 29, 2024."George [Dodd] built a very attractive IDS like system, called 'Associative Programming Language' (APL)" <a href="978-1-4503-1771-9" target="_blank">978-1-4503-1771-9</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Dodd, George G. (November 1966). "APL: A language for associative data handling in PL/I". AFIPS '66 (Fall): Proceedings of the November 7-10, 1966, fall joint computer conference. pp. 677–684. doi:10.1145/1464291.146436 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISBN 978-1-4503-7893-2. Retrieved July 2, 2024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link) <a href="978-1-4503-7893-2" target="_blank">978-1-4503-7893-2</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Price, Carol (1978), "APL/VAAM" (PDF), NASA Conference Publication 2055: Engineering and Scientific Data Management, NASA, pp. 85–97 <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf" target="_blank">https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>Price, Carol (1978), "APL/VAAM" (PDF), NASA Conference Publication 2055: Engineering and Scientific Data Management, NASA, pp. 85–97 <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf" target="_blank">https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Price, Carol (1978), "APL/VAAM" (PDF), NASA Conference Publication 2055: Engineering and Scientific Data Management, NASA, pp. 85–97 <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf" target="_blank">https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780025833/downloads/19780025833.pdf</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>