A slot is a slit or narrow opening, especially one for receiving something, such as a coin or letter. A slot in a computer is a place where data can be stored. There are a variety of slots in a computer, and each has its own purpose. A slot is also a position, such as an ice hockey player in the center circle or a football quarterback.
In sports, a player in the slot has a number of advantages over other positions. He can get to the ball quicker and has a chance to make a play for a touchdown or a field goal. The slot is also a good position for younger players to learn the game of football and develop their skills in the game.
Table Slots are used to store any table of data (2-Dimensional) or a surface (3-Dimensional). The rows in a Table Slot can contain any data set, including both periodic and non-periodic data. A Column may contain either a Text header or a numeric value with units (user-defined unit sets can be specified). A Periodic Slot can include any timeseries that repeats over a specified period. The Periodic configuration options in the View menu determine the available period, interval and data interpolation settings.
When a Table Slot is configured to lookup, it is possible to specify column specifications in RPL by using the symbol followed by the row label and the desired value. The data in the Table Slot will then be looked up from an external database for each timestep of the series. This can be useful when working with very large tables, where manual entry of each column would be impractical.
In addition to looking up data from external databases, a Table Slot can be used as an input source by enabling the Series mode in its configuration menu. A Series Slot will then appear in the Slot Viewer with special ornamentation to indicate its periodic input capabilities. When it is configured in this mode, a RPL reference to a value at a timestep outside of the range of the Series slot will return NaN.
Scalar Slots can be undocked from the Slot Viewer and displayed in their own dialog box. This allows you to easily edit a scalar slot without first having to open the Slot Viewer or configure its dialog. You can redock a scalar slot back into the Slot Viewer by clicking on its icon. The Slot Viewer also provides an easy way to display multiple scalar slots and 1×1 table slots in a compact tabular format. This can be especially useful for analyzing trendlines. It can also be helpful for comparing multiple scalar slots to identify patterns or anomalies.