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In computer science, a programming language is said to have first-class functions if it treats functions as first-class citizens.This means the language supports passing functions as arguments to other functions, returning them as the values from other functions, and assigning them to variables or storing them in data structures. [1]
The dope vector is a complete handle for the array, and is a convenient way to pass arrays as arguments to procedures. Many useful array slicing operations (such as selecting a sub-array, swapping indices, or reversing the direction of the indices) can be performed very efficiently by manipulating the dope vector. [2]
Function rank is an important concept to array programming languages in general, by analogy to tensor rank in mathematics: functions that operate on data may be classified by the number of dimensions they act on. Ordinary multiplication, for example, is a scalar ranked function because it operates on zero-dimensional data (individual numbers).
In C and C++ arrays do not support the size function, so programmers often have to declare separate variable to hold the size, and pass it to procedures as a separate parameter. Elements of a newly created array may have undefined values (as in C), or may be defined to have a specific "default" value such as 0 or a null pointer (as in Java).
A function call using named parameters differs from a regular function call in that the arguments are passed by associating each one with a parameter name, instead of providing an ordered list of arguments. For example, consider this Java or C# method call that doesn't use named parameters:
Function parameters are passed by value, although arrays are passed as pointers, i.e. the address of the first item in the array. Pass-by-reference is simulated in C by explicitly passing pointers to the thing being referenced. C program source text is free-form code.
A function definition starts with the name of the type of value that it returns or void to indicate that it does not return a value. This is followed by the function name, formal arguments in parentheses, and body lines in braces. In C++, a function declared in a class (as non-static) is called a member function or method.
How functions that take a variable number of arguments (variadic functions) are handled. Options include just passed in order (presuming the first parameter is in an obvious position) or the variable parts in an array. How return values are delivered from the callee back to the caller.