In the FSL, the word ARRAY and its variants are used to define 1-dimensional
arrays. In retrospect this appears to me to have been a poor selection of a word
name. The general meaning of the word "array" is a regular arrangement of items,
and is not restricted to one dimension. Thus, vectors are an example of one
dimensional arrays, matrices are two dimensional arrays, and objects with a
larger number of indices are higher dimensional arrays. It is unfortunate that
the meaning of ARRAY in the FSL is restricted to 1-D arrays, since its meaning
conflicts with the general meaning, and could lead to confusion. Worse, it
prevents us from using the word ARRAY for defining higher-dimensional arrays in
the FSL, and we will have to resort to using awkward names such as NDARRAY, or
some such...

Krishna Myneni krishnamyneni@bellsouth.net wrote:

Personally, I agree with the preference for 'array' as the general term.
Presently the FSL provides only one- and two-dimensional arrays, and uses
MATRIX for the latter.

Changing this terminology is another of a variety of possible revisions
that have accumulated with experience, several of which have been
mentioned in comp.lang.forth at various times. A "new release" of the
FSL could incorporate a number of them, and would be IMHO a significant
improvement. Single changes which "break existing code" are harder to
justify.

C. G. Montgomery wrote: