APL syntax and symbols

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This article contains APL source code. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of APL symbols.

The programming language APL is distinctive in being symbolic rather than lexical: its primitives are denoted by symbols, not words. These symbols were originally devised as a mathematical notation to describe algorithms.^[1] APL programmers often assign informal names when discussing functions and operators (for example, "product" for ×/) but the core functions and operators provided by the language are denoted by non-textual symbols.