From the Help (its hard to find)
Operations on lists are of two types:
- Pair-wise -- Pairwise operators act on two lists in parallelelement fashion. The first element of list 1 pairs with the first element of list 2, the second element of list 1 pairs with the second element of list 2, and so on. If one list has fewer elements than the other, the last element in the shorter list is repeated for operations with the remaining elements of the longer list. If list 1 consists of "A":"B":"C" and list 2 consists of "1":"2," the operation is performed as though list 2 contained "1":"2":"2." For pairwise equality tests, only one match is needed for the statement to return True, or 1.
- Permuted -- Permutation operators act on two lists, pairing every possible combination of their values. The resulting list has an element for each pairing in the following order: list 1 element 1 paired with each element in list 2, list 1 element 2 paired with each element in list 2, and so on through the last element in list 1.
If an operation occurs on a list and a non-list value, the non-list value is paired with each element in the list.
The table below shows the pairwise and permutation operators.
Pair-wise operator | Permutation operator | Meaning |
* | ** | Multiplication |
/ | */ | Division |
+ | *+ | Addition |
- | *- | Subtraction |
> | *> | Greater than |
< | *< | Less than |
>= | *>= | Greater than or equal to |
<= | *<= | Less than or equal to |
= | *= | Equal |
!= | *!= | Not equal |
Operation | Statement | Yields |
Concatenation, pair-wise | "A":"B":"C"+"1":"2":"3"
"A":"B":"C"+"1":"2" "A":"B":"C"+"1" | "A1":"B2":"C3"
"A1":"B2":"C2" "A1":"B1":C1" |
Concatenation, permutation | "A":"B":"C"*+"1":"2":"3"
"A":"B":"C"*+"1":"2" | "A1":"A2":"A3":"B1":"B2":"B3":"C1":"C2":"C3"
"A1":"A2":"B1":"B2":"C1":"C2" |
Addition, pair-wise | 1:2:3+10:20:30
1:2:3+10:20 1:2:3+10 | 11:22:33
11:22:23 11:12:13 |
Addition, permutation | 1:2:3*+10:20:30
1:2:3*+10:20 | 11:21:31:12:22:32:13:23:33
11:21:12:22:13:23 |
Text equality, pair-wise | "A":"B":"C"="B":"C":"A"
"A":"B":"C"="B":"C" "B":"B":"C"="B":"C" | 0 False
1 True 1 |
Text equality, permutation | "A":"B":"C"*="B":"C":"A"
"A":"B":"C"*="B":"C" "B":"B":"C"*="D":"E" | 1
1 0 |
Number equality, pair-wise | 1:2:3=2:3:1
1:2:3=2:3 2:3:3=2:3 2:3:3=3:1 | 0
1 1 0 |
Number equality, permutation | 1:2:3*=2:3:1
1:2:3*=2:3 1:2:3*=4:5 | 1
1 0 |
Date equality, pair-wise | [1190]:[2290]:[3390]=
[3390]:[2290]:[1190] [1190]:[2290]:[3390]= [2290]:[3390] [2290]:[3390]:[3390]= [2290]:[3390] | 1
1
1 |
Date equality, permutation | [1190]:[2290]:[3390]*=
[3390]:[2290]:[1190] [1190]:[2290]:[3390]*= [2290]:[3390] [1190]:[2290]:[3390]*= [4490]:[5590] | 1
1
0 |