Statements
A statement is a line of characters understood by APL. It may be composed of:
- a LABEL (which must be followed by a colon
:
), or a CONTROL STATEMENT (which is preceded by a colon), or both, - an EXPRESSION (see Expressions),
- a SEPARATOR (consisting of the diamond character
⋄
which must separate adjacent expressions), - a COMMENT (which must start with the character
⍝
).
Each of the four parts is optional, but if present they must occur in the given order except that successive expressions must be separated by ⋄
. Any characters occurring to the right of the first comment symbol (⍝
) that is not within quotes is a comment.
Comments are not executed by APL. Expressions in a line separated by ⋄
are taken in left-to-right order as they occur in the line. For output display purposes, each separated expression is treated as a separate statement.
Examples
5×10
50
MULT: 5×10
50
MULT: 5×10 ⋄ 2×4
50
8
MULT: 5×10 ⋄ 2×4 ⍝ MULTIPLICATION
50
8