Reverse Compose

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Reverse Compose () or Before is a primitive operator closely related to Beside (), which appears in Extended Dyalog APL, dzaima/APL, April and Kap. Called dyadically with function operands f and g, it uses f monadically to pre-processes the left argument before applying g between the pre-processed left argument and the given right argument. X f⍛g Y is thus equivalent to (f X) g Y. The operator can be defined as the dop {(⍺⍺ ⍺) ⍵⍵ ⍵}. This dyadic definition matches the hook function Before, represented as in BQN.

Unlike Before, the monadic case of Reverse Compose has differed across implementations. When introduced by Extended Dyalog APL, f⍛g Y evaluated to g Y, but the later Dyalog APL Vision, as well as April and Kap, define it to be (f Y) g Y, matching Before. This later definition might also be written f⍛g f⍛g⍨⍨ g⍨∘f⍨. In dzaima/APL the monadic case is simply an error.

Common usage

Its plain usage is to pre-process left arguments without needing one or more applications of Commute (). For example, the square of the left argument minus the right argument can be expressed as:

Try it online!

      3×⍨⍛-2
7

It can also be combined with Beside to create the split-compose construct. Here, we take the sign of the left argument and apply it to (that is, multiply it with) the absolute value of the right argument:

Try it online!

      3 ¯1 4×⍛×∘|¯2 ¯7 1
2 ¯7 1

External links

Documentation

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APL built-ins [edit]
Primitives (Timeline) Functions
Scalar
Monadic ConjugateNegateSignumReciprocalMagnitudeExponentialNatural LogarithmFloorCeilingFactorialNotPi TimesRollTypeImaginarySquare Root
Dyadic AddSubtractTimesDivideResiduePowerLogarithmMinimumMaximumBinomialComparison functionsBoolean functions (And, Or, Nand, Nor) ∙ GCDLCMCircularComplexRoot
Non-Scalar
Structural ShapeReshapeTallyDepthRavelEnlistTableCatenateReverseRotateTransposeRazeMixSplitEncloseNestCut (K)PairLinkPartitioned EnclosePartition
Selection FirstPickTakeDropUniqueIdentityStopSelectReplicateExpandSet functions (IntersectionUnionWithout) ∙ Bracket indexingIndexCartesian ProductSort
Selector Index generatorGradeIndex OfInterval IndexIndicesDealPrefix and suffix vectors
Computational MatchNot MatchMembershipFindNub SieveEncodeDecodeMatrix InverseMatrix DivideFormatExecuteMaterialiseRange
Operators Monadic EachCommuteConstantReplicateExpandReduceWindowed ReduceScanOuter ProductKeyI-BeamSpawnFunction axis
Dyadic BindCompositions (Compose, Reverse Compose, Beside, Withe, Atop, Over) ∙ Inner ProductDeterminantPowerAtUnderRankDepthVariantStencilCutDirect definition (operator)
Quad names Index originComparison toleranceMigration levelAtomic vector