Shape

Every HDS object has a shape or dimensionality. This is described by an integer (the number of dimensions) and an integer array (containing the size of each dimension). A scalar (for example a single number) has, by convention, a dimensionality of zero; i.e. its number of dimensions is 0. A vector has a dimensionality of 1; i.e. its number of dimensions is 1, and the first element of the dimension array contains the size of the vector. An array refers to an object with 2 or more dimensions; a maximum of 7 dimensions are allowed. Objects may be referred to as scalar primitives or vector structures and so on.