Compiling APL: The Yorktown APL Translator

Abstract

The Yorktown APL Translator (YAT) permits functions written in APL to be compiled using an existing compiler for part of the process. It also creates tables that allow the APL2 Release 2 interpreter to call the compiled code. The code can also be called from a Fortran main routine. This paper outlines the history of APL compilation, the motivation for producing YAT, the design choices that were made, and the manner of implementation. Sample APL functions and their translations are shown, and the time required to interpret these functions is compared with the time required to execute the compiled code. Possible further work is discussed.