Learning Perl 6

Glossary

When I italicize a word or phrase in this book it usually means you can find it defined in the glossary. Think of them as hyperlinks. You’ll get used to these words the more you practice, but until then I provide this guide.

abstract method

A method that is defined but not implemented.

abstract syntax tree

A data structure a parser uses to translate its input into a usable form.

accessor method

A method that directly gets or sets a property of an object.

action class

A class used to generate side effects while a parser goes through a grammar.

adverb

A setting the modifies the action of a thingy. An adverb is often a colon pair like :out.

allomorph

A type that combines other types and can act as any of them. For example, an IntStr can act like an Int or a Str.

alternation

A pattern feature that allows different subpatterns to possibly match at the same position.

Any

The base class for all types. Some things return Any on failure.

argument

The concrete value that fills in a parameter.

arity

The number of parameters a signature defines.

assertion

A pattern feature that matches a condition rather than a character.

assign

Store a value, typically in some sort of new container. This is different from binding.

Associative

A role that indexes its elements by strings.

associativity

The order in which operators of the same precedence decide which goes first.

asynchronous

Concurrent tasks can progress independently in overlapping time frames.

attribute

The label for data an object tracks.

autochomp

Automatically ...