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Re: origin of the index syntax


From: Francesco Potorti`
Subject: Re: origin of the index syntax
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:48:56 +0200

>>>> does anyone know where the index expression syntax used
>>>> in Octave comes from?  Is the Matlab people who invented it?
>>>> Or else it is older?
>>>> Was it just the evolution of something in common usage?

David Bateman:
>>> I believe the syntax was developed at the time when octave-forge
>>> was being setup, and its category index was also being setup.

Bill Denney:
>> I'm not sure, but I think that Francesco is referring to the
>> index like a(5).  I don't have an answer, but I think that's
>> the quesiton.

Yes.  I mean the syntax for matrix indices, the one that defines what is
a number, in ainterval, an array. I would like to use it in a program of
mine and would like to know what is its proper name.

Ted Harding:
>Some languages distinguish between a function call like fname(...)
>and reference to an indexed variable like vname[...] by different
>syntax. C is such a language, and originated in 1972 (though it
>evolved from languages going back to the early 60s).

Thank you for the interesting excursus on the history of the (..) and
[..] syntaxes, but that's not what I meant :-)

I meant to ask this: If I want to take a slice of a multidimensional
array, I can express it as [1:10, 3, 0.1, [3 6], :].  Is there a common
name for this kind of syntax?

-- 
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ISTI - Area della ricerca CNR          Fax:   +39 050 313 8091
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