Current Page: NeXtMidas User's Guide Basic Concepts Commands Primitives
| #### Primitives Primitives are commands that typically process arbitrarily large signal data files. In contrast to intrinsics, whose primary processing section executes only once, a primitive loops over sections of data until its job is done. A primitive runs in a thread separate from that of the shell that dispatches it. Its lifetime is limited only by an end-of-file condition on an input file, completion of a write-only task, voluntary termination for a primitive-specific reason, or forced termination by the NeXtMidas shell. Simultaneously running primitives can coordinate their activities by sending messages among themselves. A primitive cannot be executed until it has been added to the dictionary of the option tree in which it is packaged.