How do I use the functional forms of apply and amend?

Typical q code operates on all of the elements of a container at once:

q)container: 1 2 3
q)100 * container
100 200 300
q)

Sometimes we are interested in only a subset of elements from a container:

q)container: til 10
q)container
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
q)container[where 0 = container mod 2]
0 2 4 6 8
q)

Sometimes, however, you need to update particular elements of a structure while leaving the remaining elements unchanged. That’s what functional apply and amend are for; they transform specific elements of a container without touching the others. The variations are distinguished by 3 choices:

  1. @ or .

Which operator is used, @ or ., determines the interpretation of the indices used to select the elements to transform.

  1. container or name

The first argument is either the value of a container or the name of a global variable referring to a container. In the former case, a new object is returned; in the latter, the global variable is modified and its name is returned.

  1. monadic or dyadic function

If the transformation requires additional information beyond that contained in each element itself, that is accomplished by using a dyadic function and supplying the additional information in a fourth argument to the operator.

For a detailed discussion, please see the following faqs:

Functional @ (apply)

Functional . (apply)

Lastly, note that there is another pair of overloads for @ and . – each with three arguments – called protected execution, which are invoked when the first argument to @ or . is a function or projection; protected execution is discussed in another faq.