Author Archives: Adám Brudzewsky

Dyalog Version 18.4.1

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During the recent APL Seeds ’22 meeting, it was suggested that we introduce keywords that could be used as an alternative to APL symbols. Several historical APL systems have provided such mechanisms. However, rather than adopting one of the old keyword schemes, we have decided to go for a more future-proof solution, recognising that the modern equivalent of keywords is emojis.

Emojis are already in widespread usage: they are included in fonts, and there is support for entry of emojis on a wide variety of devices. We have decided to adopt the existing proposal by StavromulaBeta, with minor changes. Examples include:

New Emoji Legacy Glyph New Emoji Legacy Glyph
🤔 ⍵ 💭 ⍝
✍ ' 🏁 ←
💂 : 📤 ⎕
🤱 ( 🎅 )
🌜 { 🌛 }

In addition to usage of the language bar, and platform-specific emoji input methods, input via emoticons like :) and shortcodes like :slightly_smiling_face: (as used in chat clients and on GitHub, respectively), can be toggled on.

Screen-shot of a representative 18.4.1 sample session.


Backwards compatibility will be provided by an automatic translation mechanism on )LOAD of existing workspaces, and Link will update all source files, on first use of the new version 18.4.1.

For users of the Classic edition, new ⎕Uxxxxx spellings will be introduced. For example, the last expression in the above screen-shot will be:

⎕U1f31c⎕U1f9ee⎕U1f9ec⎕U1f914⎕U1f910⎕U1f534⎕U1f642⎕U1f4da⎕U1f4c8⎕U1f33f⎕U1f914⎕U1f31b ⎕U1f621⎕U1f910 k6174⎕U1f351 ⎕U1f931⎕U1f4da 9999⎕U1f385⎕U1f645 1111⎕U1f9ed⎕U1f4da9

Unfortunately, we are not able to make the new version available on the Apple macOS® platform, where the use of a certain of fruit emoji makes it impossible to introduce the new spelling.

We will be announcing the release date for version 18.4.1 shortly. Please contact support@dyalog.com if you would like to participate in testing the pre-release, or have suggestions for improving the choice of emojis.

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Enhanced Debugging with Function Keys – Evaluate selection

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See also Enhanced Debugging with Function Keys.

When tracing through a complex dfn and reaching a guard (condition:result), I am often wary of tracing into that line because if the condition evaluates to 1 then the current function I’m tracing through will terminate and return the result, leading to me losing situational awareness. Normally, I’d select the condition expression, copy it, move to the session and execute the expression, so I can predict what will happen next. Can we automate this? Yes we can.

Now, I usually prefer the Windows IDE for my daily development, but this is actually a case where RIDE has neat feature that’s missing from the IDE (but if you keep reading, I’ll show you how to achieve a similar effect in the IDE). In RIDE, go to Edit ⇒ Preferences ⇒ Shortcuts (or simply click ⌨︎ at the right end of the language bar), then type the name of a function key you want to use for this purpose, followed by a space, for example “F6 ” for . You’ll see exactly one entry in the listing. In the input field, write “<VAL>” (without quotes):

I defined a simple function to test it with, and traced into that:

      ⎕VR⎕FX'f←{' '⍺∧⍵:''both''' '⍺∨⍵:''either''' '''neither''' '}'
     ∇ f←{
[1]        ⍺∧⍵:'both'
[2]        ⍺∨⍵:'either'
[3]        'neither'
[4]    }
     ∇ 
      f

Tracing into f
Upon reaching a guard, I select the condition:
Selecting the condition
And Press :
Pressing F6
Voilà!

Cool, but how about the IDE?

Right, the Windows IDE doesn’t support the VAL command code, but we can easily emulate it by combining multiple command codes and assigning them to an F-key using ⎕PFKEY.

What we need to do is:

  1. Copy the current selection
  2. Jump to the session
  3. Paste
  4. Execute
  5. Jump back again

Options ⇒ Configure… ⇒ Keyboard Shortcuts ⇒ Description gives that the command codes for “Copy”, “JumP between current window and session window”, and “Paste” are CP, JP, and PT. We use ER (you can find all but JP using the ]KeyPress user command too) to press . Here we go:

      'CP' 'JP' 'PT' 'ER' 'JP' ⎕PFKEY 6
┌──┬──┬──┬──┬──┐
│CP│JP│PT│ER│JP│
└──┴──┴──┴──┴──┘

Keep it so!

RIDE keeps its setting, but of course, I wouldn’t want to be bothered with setting this up for every IDE session. So here’s a trick to set up F-keys (or anything else for that matter). When Dyalog APL starts up, it will look for MyUCMDs\setup.dyalog in your Documents folder ($HOME/MyUCMDs/setup.dyalog on non-Windows). If this file contains a function named Setup, it will be run whenever APL starts:

      ∇Setup
[1]  '<F6> is: ','CP' 'JP' 'PT' 'ER' 'JP' ⎕PFKEY 6
[2]  ∇
      (⊂⎕NR'Setup')⎕NPUT'C:\Users\Adam.DYALOG\Documents\MyUCMDs\setup.dyalog'

And now, when I start APL:
Upon start

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Enhanced Debugging with Function Keys

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Sometimes I want an additional functionality in the IDE. (Are you a RIDE user? We’ll cover that too!) For example, the other day, I was tracing through some very long functions to find an error which was being caught by a trap. Since the error was being caught, I couldn’t just let the function run until it would suspend. Again and again, I would press too many times, causing the error to happen and be trapped, and thus having to start all over again.

I wish I could select a line and run until there, I thought. Sure, I could set a break-point there and then continue execution, but that would drop me into the session upon hitting the break-point, and then I’d have to trace back into the function, and remember to clear the break-point. A repetitive work-flow indeed.

Make it so!

Luckily, I know someone who loves doing repetitive tasks: ⎕PFKEY. This is what I needed done:

  1. Toggle break-point (to set it)
  2. Resume execution
  3. Trace
  4. Toggle break point (to clear it)

A quick look in Options > Configure… > Keyboard Shortcuts > Code revealed that the command codes for these are BP, RM, TC, and BP again, so I tried:

      'BP' 'RM' 'TC' 'BP' ⎕PFKEY 10
 BP  RM  TC  BP

I defined a simple function to test it with, and traced into that:

      ⎕FX 'f',⎕D
      ⎕VR 'f'
     ∇f
[1]   0
[2]   1
[3]   2
[4]   3
[5]   4
[6]   5
[7]   6
[8]   7
[9]   8
[10]  9
     ∇ 
      f

Tracing into f

Then I clicked on the line with a 7 on it, pressed , and lo:

Suspended on line 7

Keep it so!

Of course, I wouldn’t want to be bothered with setting this up in every session. So here’s a trick to set up F-keys (or anything else for that matter). When Dyalog APL starts up, it will look for MyUCMDs\setup.dyalog in your Documents folder ($HOME/MyUCMDs/setup.dyalog on non-Windows). If this file contains a function named Setup, it will be run whenever APL starts:

      ∇Setup
[1]  '<F10> is: ','BP' 'RM' 'TC' 'BP' ⎕PFKEY 10
[2]  ∇
      (⊂⎕NR'Setup')⎕NPUT'C:\Users\Adam.DYALOG\Documents\MyUCMDs\setup.dyalog'

And now, when I start APL:

New Session

Cool, but how about the RIDE?

Right, the RIDE doesn’t support ⎕PFKEY. However, Edit > Preferences > Shortcuts lets you both find the relevant command codes and assign them to F-keys. Just put <BP><RM><TC><BP> (type or paste those sixteen characters, with angle brackets and everything — don’t press the keys they symbolise!) in the PF10 input field:

Setting F10

The RIDE saves these preferences for you. Note that you can’t assign F-keys in $HOME/MyUCMDs/setup.dyalog because ⎕PFKEY has no effect in the RIDE, but you can still use that file to initialise other things.

Taking it one step further…

After using this for a while, I realised that I often want to “step into” a specific line . That is, I found myself pressing and then – (the default keystroke for tracing). So I’ve assigned – the same sequence, but with an additional trailing TC action:

      ∇Setup
[1]  '<F10> is: ','BP' 'RM' 'TC' 'BP' ⎕PFKEY 10
[2]  '<Ctrl>+<F10> is: ','BP' 'RM' 'TC' 'BP' 'TC' ⎕PFKEY 34
[3]  ∇
      (⊂⎕NR'Setup')⎕NPUT'C:\Users\Adam.DYALOG\Documents\MyUCMDs\setup.dyalog'

And for the RIDE, I set PF34 (which by default is invoked with –) to <BP><RM><TC><BP><TC>:

Setting Ctrl-F10

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