Atom

An atom or an atomic value denotes a single element -- a number, text string, a handle, a reference, or the value Null, i.e. not an array (table).

A scalar is simply a single atomic number -- that is not an array.

Atomic values form the cells of arrays but they may also stand by themselves as values, e.g. the result of evaluating 1+2 is the atomic value 3, which is not an array. The Title attribute of any object is an atomic text value.

Because an atom can be seen as a zero-dimensional array, an atoms is functionally equivalent to an array with no indexes. In standard usage the term atom or atomic value is used to distinguish a simple value from an array or list (one-dimensional array).

See Also

• Objects and Values
• Atomic function parameters
• Atom parameters and array abstraction