retroforth/doc/book/Programming-Techniques-Working-With-Arrays

# Working With Arrays

RETRO offers a number of words for operating on statically sized
arrays.

## Namespace

The words operating on arrays are kept in an `a:` namespace.

## Creating Arrays

The easiest way to create an array is to wrap the values in a
`{` and `}` pair:

```
{ #1 #2 #3 #4 }
{ 'this 'is 'an 'array 'of 'strings }
{ 'this 'is 'a 'mixed 'array #1 #2 #3 }
```

You can also make an array from a quotation which returns
values and the number of values to store in the a:

```
[ #1 #2 #3  #3 ] a:counted-results
[ #1 #2 #3  #3 ] a:make
```

## Accessing Elements

You can access a specific value with `a:th` and `fetch` or
`store`:

```
{ #1 #2 #3 #4 } #3 a:th fetch
```

## Find The Length

Use `a:length` to find the size of the array.

```
{ #1 #2 #3 #4 } a:length
```

## Duplicate

Use `a:dup` to make a copy of an a:

```
{ #1 #2 #3 #4 } a:dup
```

## Filtering

RETRO provides `a:filter` which extracts matching values
from an array. This is used like:

```
{ #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 } [ n:even? ] a:filter
```

The quote will be passed each value in the array and should
return TRUE or FALSE. Values that lead to TRUE will be collected
into a new array.

## Mapping

`a:map` applies a quotation to each item in an array and
constructs a new array from the returned values.

Example:

```
{ #1 #2 #3 } [ #10 * ] a:map
```

## Reduce

`a:reduce` takes an array, a starting value, and a quote. It
executes the quote once for each item in the array, passing the
item and the value to the quote. The quote should consume both
and return a new value.

```
{ #1 #2 #3 } #0 [ + ] a:reduce
```

## Search

RETRO provides `a:contains?` and `a:contains-string?`
to search an array for a value (either a number or string) and
return either TRUE or FALSE.

```
#100  { #1 #2 #3 } a:contains?
'test { 'abc 'def 'test 'ghi } a:contains-string?
```

## Implementation

In memory, an array is a count followed by the values. As an
example, if you have an array:

    { #10 #20 #30 }

In memory this would be setup as:

    | Offset | Value |
    | ------ | ----- |
    | 000    | 3     |
    | 001    | 10    |
    | 002    | 20    |
    | 003    | 30    |

You can construct one on the fly by keeping a pointer to
`here` and using `,` to place the values. E.g.,

    here [ #3 , #10 , #20 , #30 , ] dip

An example of this can be seen in this excerpt from an example
(*example/Primes.forth*):

    :create-set (-a) 
        here #3000 , #2 #3002 [ dup , n:inc ] times drop ;