Origin of "dope vector"

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3 total messages Started by Rod Oldehoeft Wed, 19 Aug 1992 20:56

#1023

Author: Rod Oldehoeft
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 20:56

26 lines
1757 bytes

I'm writing up a little paper on array implementation and
manipulation.  I use the term "dope vector" for the data
structure that holds lower and upper bounds and subscripting
multipliers for each dimension.  The oldest reference I
have for this particular term is Gries' 1971 book, where
the reference is:

... "For arrays this template is called a dope vector or
information vector. ...

The terms are underlined, but still it seems to be a term
in common use at that time.  Does anyone know where the
term was first coined?

-- 
|--------------------------------------------------------------|
| Rod Oldehoeft                    Email: rro@cs.colostate.edu |
| Computer Science Department      Voice: 303/491-5792         |
| Colorado State University        Fax:   303/491-6639         |
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Re: Origin of "dope vector"

#1027

Author: Edward S. Hirgelt
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 22:08

25 lines
1264 bytes

On 19 Aug 92 20:56:11 GMT,
rro@cs.ColoState.EDU (Rod Oldehoeft) said:

Rod>                                   The oldest reference I
Rod> have for this particular term is Gries' 1971 book, where
Rod> the reference is:

Rod> ... "For arrays this template is called a dope vector or
Rod> information vector. ...

I'm not sure of the exact first use, but I first encountered ``dope
vector'' in reading the PL/I reference manuals for the OS 360 in late
1969. Gries was at that time pretty IBM oriented so his use may have
derived from the same PL/I documentation. PL/I had already been around
for a while in 1969 so the terminology is prabably older. 

Good luck in your search,
Ed


--
Ed Hirgelt			esh@tss.com
Direct Interfaces Corporation
San Jose, Ca.

Re: Origin of "dope vector"

#1042

Author: Dik T. Winter
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 11:34

24 lines
1649 bytes

In article <ESH.92Aug20140859@boron.tekbspa.com> esh@boron.tekbspa.com (Edward S. Hirgelt) writes:
 > On 19 Aug 92 20:56:11 GMT,
 > rro@cs.ColoState.EDU (Rod Oldehoeft) said:
 > Rod>                                   The oldest reference I
 > Rod> have for this particular term is Gries' 1971 book, where
 > Rod> the reference is:
 > 
 > I'm not sure of the exact first use, but I first encountered ``dope
 > vector'' in reading the PL/I reference manuals for the OS 360 in late
 > 1969. Gries was at that time pretty IBM oriented so his use may have
 > derived from the same PL/I documentation. PL/I had already been around
 > for a while in 1969 so the terminology is prabably older. 
 > 
Certainly.  In front of me I have K. Sattley and P. Z. Ingerman, The
Allocation of Storage for Arrays in Algol-60, University of Pennsylvania
Report, AFOSR-TN-60-1320, November 1960.  On page 3 they say:
	Stored along with the elements of an array will be a "dope vector"
	containing the information necessary to reference the array (the
	parameters of the storage-mapping function).
But I do not know whether *that* is the first use.
-- 
dik t. winter, cwi, kruislaan 413, 1098 sj  amsterdam, nederland
home: bovenover 215, 1025 jn  amsterdam, nederland
dik@cwi.nl

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