Reference card

Every l primitive on one page. Each glyph has a monadic and a dyadic meaning; monadic primitives are invoked by keyword (first, reverse, …), dyadic ones by the infix glyph. Read right-to-left, no precedence.

CoC — does it avoid decompressing? ✓ = computes on the encoding or reads the header (no full decode); - = materialises first. Compound cells are monadic / dyadic.

Glyphs

Glyph	Monadic	Dyadic	CoC
::	identity — return x	assign-through (returns y)	- / -
+	flip — transpose	add	- / ✓
-	neg — negate	subtract	✓ / ✓
*	first — head	multiply	✓ / ✓
%	reciprocal — 1%x	float divide	✓ / ✓
&	where — mask → indices	lesser / and	✓ / ✓
\|	reverse	greater / or	✓ / ✓
^	null — null mask	fill nulls	✓ / ✓
=	group — value → indices	equal	✓ / ✓
<	iasc — grade up	less-than	✓ / ✓
>	idesc — grade down	greater-than	✓ / ✓
$	string — format	cast / pad; float matmul	- / ✓
,	enlist	join	✓ / ✓
#	count	take / reshape	✓ / ✓
_	floor	drop / cut	✓ / ✓
~	not	match (identical?)	✓ / ✓
!	key — dict keys	build dict / enum	✓ / ✓
?	distinct	find index; roll	✓ / ✓
@	type	index / apply	✓ / ✓
.	value — eval	apply / deep-index	- / -

0: 1: 2: are the text/CSV, fixed-width, and dynamic-load I/O glyphs (all materialise).

Math & statistics

Verb	Meaning	CoC
neg abs	negate / absolute value	✓
sqrt exp log	root / eˣ / natural log	✓
sin cos tan asin acos atan sinh cosh tanh	trig & hyperbolic (radians)	✓
reciprocal floor	1%x / round toward −inf	✓
div	x div y — integer floor-division	✓
xexp	x xexp y — power xʸ	-
sum prd avg	total / product / mean	✓
min max	extrema (O(1) from header bounds)	✓
med	median	-
var dev	variance / std-dev (population)	✓
svar sdev	sample variance / std-dev	✓
cov cor	covariance / correlation	✓
wsum wavg	weighted sum / mean	✓
sums prds mins maxs	running total / product / min / max	-
deltas ratios avgs	successive diffs / ratios / running mean	-
mmxw mmnw	windowed running max / min	✓
mmu xmm	matrix multiply A·B / A·Bᵀ (float)	-

Lists, search & tables

Verb	Meaning	CoC
til	til n — 0..n−1	-
count	number of items	✓
first last	head / tail	✓
next prev	shift ∓1 (0N fill)	-
reverse rotate	reverse / n rotate x cyclic shift	✓ / -
flip	transpose	-
enlist raze	wrap as 1-list / flatten one level	✓ / -
where group distinct	indices / value→indices / unique	✓
asc desc iasc idesc	sort / grade, ascending & descending	✓
rank xbar	ordinal position / w xbar x round down	- / ✓
cut sublist	n cut x chunk / n sublist x slice	-
cross fills	Cartesian product / forward-fill nulls	-
in within bin	membership / range test / binary search	✓
inter union except	set intersect / union / difference	-
key value	dict keys / values	✓ / -
keys cols meta	key-columns / all-columns / column info	✓
xkey xcol	key a table / rename columns	-
xasc xdesc	sort a table by column(s)	✓
insert upsert	append / add-or-overwrite rows	-
fby	filter-by: per-group aggregate inside where	✓

q-sql: select / exec / update / delete … by … from … where — templates, read right-to-left.

Text & I/O

Verb	Meaning	CoC
string	format any value to characters	-
lower upper trim	case / strip blanks	-
like	glob match (? *)	-
ss ssr	substring find / replace	-
sv vs	join↔split; base decode↔encode	-
set get	serialize↔read a value on disk	-
read0 0: 1:	text lines / CSV / fixed-width binary	-

Types

For a type, ✓ means XCMP-compressible. Default integer is int (type 1 → -6h).

Type	Char	Type#	Literal	CoC
boolean	b	−1h	`0b` / `101b`	✓
byte	x	−4h	`0x00`	✓
short	h	−5h	`0h`	✓
int	i	−6h	`1` (default)	✓
long	j	−7h	`1j`	✓
real	e	−8h	`1e`	✓
float	f	−9h	`1.0` / `1f`	✓
char	c	−10h	`"c"` / `"abc"`	-
symbol	s	−11h	`a`b`c	✓
timestamp	p	−12h	`2026.07.01D12:00:00.000000000`	✓
month	m	−13h	`2026.07m`	✓
date	d	−14h	`2026.07.01`	✓
datetime	z	−15h	`2026.07.01T12:00:00.000`	✓
timespan	n	−16h	`0D01:00:00.000000000`	✓
minute · second · time	u · v · t	−17h · −18h · −19h	`12:34` · `12:34:56` · `12:34:56.789`	✓
dictionary	—	99h	`a`b!1 2	-
table	—	98h	`([]a:1 2)`	✓
function	—	100h	`{x+1}`	-

0N / 0W are int null / infinity. Temporal null/inf literals do not lex; guid is nyi.

Iterators

Glyph	Keyword	Meaning	CoC
’	each	apply item-by-item (map)	-
\:		each-left: x against all of y	-
/:		each-right: all of x against each y	-
’:	prior	each item with its predecessor	-
/	over	fold to a single value	✓ (inherits folded verb)
\	scan	running fold, keeping every step	-
peach		parallel each	-

Examples

2*3+4                                  / 14 — right-to-left: 2*(3+4)
sum 10+til 1000000                     / 500009500000j — closed form over a compressed column
avg 1 2 3 4                            / 2.5
distinct 1 1 2 3 3                     / 1 2 3
where 1 0 2 0 1                        / 0 2 2 4 — index i repeated x[i] times
5^0N 2 0N                              / 5 2 5 — fill nulls
2 3 5 in 1 2 3 4                       / 110b
var 1 2 3 4 5.0                        / 2f — closed-form stat, stays compressed
cor[1 2 3;2 4 6.0]                     / 1f
(0.1 0.2 0.3;0.4 0.5 0.6) mmu 1 2 3.0  / 1.4 3.2 — matrix · vector
{e%sum e:exp x-max x} 1 2 3 4.0        / softmax in one line
select sum sz by sym from t            / grouped aggregate (q-sql)