APL+WebComponent APL Language

The function of APL+WebComponent is to publish the UI to an application, not to replicate all of the functionality of the application in the browser. The APL data manipulation should remain in the APL workspace on the server, with the UI being published to the browser. Typical APL functions which would be published are those that deal with data manipulation as relates to the UI, such as deleting blanks, removing and adding rows to 2 dimensional matrices, etc.  For display purposes the browser reserves the character code APL uses for match, so we have inserted [match] in those cases.

Primitive Functions 

Arithmetic Functions

Supported:

ƒ Base value

? Deal, Roll

÷ Divide, Reciprocal

µ Logarithm, Natural logarithm

— Maximum, Ceiling

˜ Minimum, Floor

- Minus, Negate

+ Plus, Conjugate

* Power, Exponential

‚ Representation

| Residue, Magnitude

× Times, Signum

± Trigonometric functions, Pi times

Not supported:

! Binomial, Factorial

Ž  Matrix divide, Matrix inverse

Boolean Functions

Supported:

^ And

= Equal

> Greater than

‰ Greater than or equal

< Less than

ˆ Less than or equal

[match]  Match

Š Nand

~ Not

¬ Not equal

‹ Nor

Ÿ Or

General Functions

Supported:

Functions that return a property

[match]  Depth

½ Shape

Functions that return an index

” Grade down

“ Grade up

¼ Index of, Index generator

Miscellaneous functions

– Execute

• Format, not Pattern format

Operators

Supported:

¨ Each, works at one level, not for multiple nested elements

°.f Outer product limited to one level of nesting, and cannot produce higher ranking results than 2

š Reduction, Compress, Replicate (first dimension)

/ Reduction, Compress, Replicate (last dimension)

š or / N-wise Reduction

™ Scan, Expand (first dimension)

\ Scan, Expand (last dimension)

Not Supported:

f.g Inner product (^.= is supported)

Structural Functions

Supported:

, or ® Catenate, Laminate

‡ Drop

› Enclose

¹ Member of, Enlist

º Find

› Partition

œ Pick, Disclose

, Ravel

½ Reshape

´ Reverse, Rotate (first dimension)

² Reverse, Rotate (last dimension)

† Take, First

³ Transpose

~ Without

Not Supported:

Þ Indexing

Syntax and Miscellaneous Symbols

Supported:

Symbols associated with values

„ Assignment

¯ High minus

[] Index into

ΠEvaluated input, Output to screen

  Places output in an alert box

 Prompt, Obtain text input

  Does not wait for input, but places

  output in main browser window

Ð Zilde

Symbols associated with functions

… Branch, not supported within control structures or branching to a line number or Œlc

© Comment n/a

: Label separator, Keyword indicator

©’ Public comment n/a

ª Statement separator

Syntax symbols

; Axis separator, for 2 dimensions

' " Character string delimiters

’ Del n/a

‘ Delta

 Delta underscore

# Number sign

_ Underscore

System Functions and Variables

Array Manipulation

Supported:

ŒDR           Data type and conversion

ŒENLIST       Array to vector

ŒFI           Numeric format

ŒFIRST        First of an array

ŒMIX          Reduce nesting

ŒSPLIT        Increase nesting

ŒSS           String search

ŒVI           Verify numeric

Not Supported:

ŒFMT          Format

ŒPENCLOSE     Array to nested vector

ŒEXPAND       Array fill

ŒREPL         Replicate array

ŒTYPE         Numeric / character

Component File Management

Not applicable, use RunAtServer to execute code on server

Error Handling and Debugging

Information required for error handling and debugging can be included in project or removed at time of creation.

Supported:

ŒDM           Diagnostic message

ŒELX          Error latent expression

ŒLC           Lines on stack (only in debug mode)

ŒSI           State indicator

ŒERROR        Throw error

Not Supported:

ŒALX          Attention latent expression

ŒMF           Time function n/a

ŒSA           Stop action n/a

ŒSINL         Character state indicator n/a

ŒSTOP         Set / cancel stop n/a

ŒTRACE        Set / cancel trace n/a

ŒWATCHPOINTS Set / cancel watch points n/a

Extended File Functions

Not applicable, use RunAtServer to execute code on server

Function and Variable Manipulation

Supported:

ŒCRL      Function line representation, requires function in server workspace

ŒCRLPC    Function public comment, requires function in server workspace

ŒEX       Erase functions or variables

ŒIDLIST   List objects in WS

ŒIDLOC    List object types in WS

ŒNC       List object types, works only with fn left argument

Not Supported:

ŒCR       Character matrix function representation n/a

ŒLOCK     Lock functions n/a

ŒNL       List object names n/a

ŒVR       Vector representation of function n/a

ŒUCMD     Execute user command

ŒSIZE     Get size of object

ŒFX       Define function from ŒCR representation

ŒDEFL     Replace / insert function line

ŒDEF      Define function(*)

ŒERASE    Erase functions or variables

Input Related and Miscellaneous

Not applicable

ŒDL       Delay execution (RunAtServer)

Interface to Operating Systems and Non-APL Programs

Not applicable, use RunAtServer to execute code on server

Native File Management

Not applicable, use RunAtServer to execute code on server

Session Information

Supported:

ŒAI       Accounting information

ŒCT       Comparison tolerance (RunAtServer)

ŒIO       Index origin

ŒLIB      File directory (RunAtServer)

ŒLIBD     Set library to directory (RunAtServer)

ŒLIBS     List libraries and directories (RunAtServer)

ŒSYS      System internals, limited to elements appropriate to APL+WebComponent

ŒTS       Timestamp

ŒWSID     WS name

ŒWSTS     WS timestamp, timestamp of APL+WebComponent workspace

Not Supported:

ŒPP       Print precision

ŒPW       Print width

ŒRL       Random number seed, no action, as random seed created by Jscript for each session

ŒSYMB     Symbol table

ŒSTPTR    Symbol table pointer

ŒWA       Workspace available n/a

ŒWSOWNER WS owner

ŒWSSIZE   WS size

Workspace Management

Supported:

ŒLX       Latent (on load) expression

Not Supported:

ŒCOPY     Copy APL objects from WS

ŒLOAD     Load APL WS

ŒPCOPY    Copy APL objects from WS (protected)

ŒPSAVE    Save active WS (protected)

ŒQLOAD    Load WS without message

ŒSAVE     Save active WS

ŒWSLIB    WS directory

ŒXLOAD    Load WS without ŒLX

System Constants

Supported:

ŒAV           Atomic vector (character set)

ŒSYSID        APL system ID (APL+WebComponent)

ŒSYSVER       APL system version

ŒTC and ŒTCxx Terminal control characters

ŒUL           Reports number of users logged in

ŒUSERID       Workstation ID

Control Structures

Supported:

:IF  :ELSE

:FOR  :IN

:WHILE  :UNTIL

:REPEAT  :UNTIL

:SELECT  :CASE

:RETURN

Not Supported:

GOTO  

Branching in a control structure is not supported

Extended File Functions 

Not applicable, use RunAtServer to execute code on server

Data Types

Supported:

Data types

11 1-bit boolean

82 8-bit character

323 32-bit integer

645 64-bit floating-point data (IEEE format)

326 32-bit pointer

807 80-bit heterogeneous

Data Structures:

Supported:

Scalars

Vectors

Vectors of Vectors

Matrices (2 dimension only)

Vectors with Matrix elements

Matrix with Matrix elements

All APL data structures

Not Supported:

Matrices with dimensions greater than 2

Deeply nested structures may cause unintended results with some operators

Using APL+WebComponent and APL+Win

Scoping of variables:

Variables which are localized, exist only in the function in which they are localized. For instance if a function foo localized a variable arg, such as:

foo;arg

arg„1

foo1

When function foo1 is called, foo1 will see arg either as undefined or be the value for global arg.

Œsysid

This returns APL+Js in the APL+WebComponent version. Using this you can test to discover which version of APL is running. For instance:

Œsysid [match] 'APL+Js'

Returns a 1 if the APL+WebComponent version is running. This is very useful when defining code which may be specific for the APL+WebComponent system.

AplJsversion

This reserved word is used to permit the inclusion of Jscript code in your application. There are times when it is very useful to be able to use Jscript directly, this is similar to including assembler code or WCALLs to speed up a particular task. For instance Jscript has very powerful tools for string manipulation, and including this code in a function which deletes trailing blanks is very useful. For example:

:if AplJsversion

    // Jscript here

:else

    ©  APL code here

:endif

Where the AplJsversion function is:

    ’ r„AplJsversion

[1]

[2]   r„Œsysid [match] 'APL+Js'

    ’

This causes the APL code to always execute in the APL+Win application. However, the APL+WebComponent SDK uses this tag to include only the Jscript code in the APL+WebComponent application.

This is particularly useful when using an ActiveControl such as the Excel ActiveControl. You can simply copy and paste sample Jscript code from the Microsoft MSDN or other sample sources, and the Excel will work immediately. Then you can take your time to make the same code work in the APL+Win application. In general, all of the properties, methods and events of an ActiveControl are directly available as documented in the control.

DHTML style properties

DHTML provides a wealth of properties which are not available in APL+Win. To make these available the user property is used. For instance:

Œwi '‘style_backgroundColor' 'buttonface'

Œwi '‘style_fontFamily' 'MS Sans Serif'

Œwi '‘style_fontSize' 12

Sets the style properties of the control as shown. This gives the developer access to all of style properties to enhance the appearance of their application in the APL+WebComponent system without impacting the APL+Win system. It is important to understand that these style properties are not the same or related in any way to the APL style properties. These style properties are the DHTML style properties. This is the reason that the delta is used to set them. The underscore _ indicates the period separator in the DHTML style property. This same convention can be used to set any property on an object, even when there is a conflict with an APL property. This is similar to using the x to set properties on ActiveControls in the APL+Win system.

Reserved words in APL+WebComponent

Because APL+WebComponent is built on Jscript, the reserved words in Jscript apply to APL+WebComponent.

JScript has a number of reserved words that you cannot use as identifiers. Reserved words have a specific meaning to the JScript language, as they are part of the language syntax. Using a reserved word causes a compilation error when loading your script.

JScript also has a list of future reserved words. These words are not currently part of the JScript language, although they are reserved for future use.

Reserved Words (case sensitive, capital versions are not reserved)

Future Reserved Words

When choosing identifiers it is also important to avoid any words that are already the names of intrinsic JScript objects or functions, such as String or parseInt.

While Jscript objects can be used, there can be complications, so they should be used judiciously, (case sensitive).