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Vectors and vector operators

A vector is a fixed-length string of values. It differs from an array in several respects:

• The elements of a vector are not indexed, hence vectors cannot be subscripted.
• Vectors may be concatenated.
• Arithmetic and comparison operators have special meanings when applied to vectors (they interpret the vectors as unsigned binary numbers).
• Logical operators have special meanings when applied to vectors (they perform ``bitwise'' operations).

A vector x of n elements is denoted by a non-empty, comma-separated list of elements within square brackets:

        [xn, ..., x1, x0]

The nth element can be extracted from a vector by the function nth, which takes a vector as its first argument, and an integer as its second argument. The function nth numbers the elements of the vector from zero on the right. So, for example,

        nth([5,4,3,2,1,0], 2) = 2

• The concatenation operator
• Extension of operators to vectors
• Vector coersion operator
• Arithmetic on vectors
• Comparison operators on vectors
• Vector sets
• Coercion of scalars to vectors
• Explicit coercion operators
• Coercion of array variables to vectors
• Binary subranges
• Vector assignments
• Assignments to arrays
• Vectors as inputs and outputs
• Iteratively constructing vectors
• Reduction operators