What’s actually going on under the hood when using elementwise operators? e.g., z=x.*y.
When I look at the syntax tree, the head is call and arg[1] is :(.*). However, I’m not sure where that symbol is actually defined. It’s not in Main or Base. Using @which gives an error.
The syntax tree is only the first half of the syntax story. The second half happens in lowering, and that’s where the magic occurs:
julia> Meta.@lower z=x.*y
:($(Expr(:thunk, CodeInfo(
1 ─ %1 = (Base.getproperty)(Base.Broadcast, :materialize) │
│ %2 = (Base.getproperty)(Base.Broadcast, :broadcasted) │
│ %3 = (%2)(*, x, y) │
│ %4 = (%1)(%3) │
│ z = %4 │
└── return %4 │
))))
This belies a good deal of complexity, but that’s the entrance to the rabbit hole.
The docs are broadcasting. The documentation on how broadcasting works, or at least how you interact with it, is here:
https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/interfaces/index.html#man-interfaces-broadcasting-1
Thank you both!