Programming Techniques: ASP—a ring implemented associative structure package

Abstract

ASP is a general purpose Associative Data Structure Package in which an arbitrary number of data items and an arbitrary number of the relationships between these data items may be represented. A special picture language is described which has proved very useful for drawing ASP structures on paper. ASP structures are built and manipulated by means of a series of macro calls, which are outlined in the Appendix. Emphasis is on the philosophy of the system rather than a particular implementation, though sufficient information is included to enable the reader to produce his own implementation of ASP.