Primitives are the building blocks in NetLogo programming. They are the simplest and smallest pieces of pre-defined NetLogo keywords that can be used to put together longer algorithms to construct complex agent-based models. As this Beginner's Interactive NetLogo Dictionary is all about some of the most commonly used primitives in NetLogo, it is helpful to understand what is a primitive and what is not a primitive.
Most primitives are one word terms (e.g., forward, to) except some multi-word ones (e.g., clear-all, scale-color, create-links-with) and some arithmetic operators (e.g., >=, +,/).
Some examples to NetLogo primitives are:
forward
color
turtles-own
+ / -
mod
nobody
ifelse
globals
neighbors
Notice how each primitive has a specific color. These colors give us hints on the function of each primitive. You can click here to learn more about these color codes.
Each primitive requires a specific structure to properly function in code, which is called the syntax of the primitive. Some primitives just work, while others require us to provide more information. For example, the clear-all primitive just works. Wherever we write clear-all in our code, everything in our model is wiped out. Similarly, the max-pxcor primitive just works. Wherever we write max-pxcor in our code, it reports the pxcor of the rightmost patches in our model. On the other hand, the forward primitive requires us to provide it with a number such as forward 5 or forward 0.375. If we wrote just forward in our code, NetLogo would show an error as follows: FORWARD expected 1 input, a number.
Some primitives may require additional information to be provided after writing the keyword, while others may require information before writing the keyword. For example, the facexy primitive requires two numbers as x and y coordinates after the keyword such as facexy -3 5. On the other hand, the in-radius primitive requires us to provide an agentset before it and a number after it such as turtles in-radius 3.
Click here to find a list of all primitives that are in this Beginner's Dictionary
Click here to find an exhaustive list of all NetLogo primitives
Lastly, you may be wondering: "If all of the examples above are primitives, what is not a primitive in NetLogo programming?" There are multiple ways for us to extend the vocabulary of our models by defining:
globals primitive such as globals [ temperature ].let primitive such as let target one-of other turtles.turtles-own, patches-own, and links-own primitives such as turtles-own [ energy ].For example, let's consider the following piece of code:
globals [ temperature ]
turtles-own [ energy ]
to setup
clear-all
create-turtles 100 [
set energy random 10
]
set temperature 40 + random 50
reset-ticks
end
to go
ask turtles [
forward 1
ifelse temperature > 80 [
set energy energy - 2
][
set energy energy - 1
]
]
tick
end
In this code, we create some turtles in the setup procedure and make the turtles move around the world in the go procedure. In addition, we set a random temperature every time the setup procedure runs; if the temperature is higher than 80 degrees, our turtles use more energy every time they move forward. The following pieces of this code are primitives:
globals
turtles-own
to
end
clear-all
create-turtles
set
random
reset-ticks
ask
turtles
forward
ifelse
>
-
tick
But the following pieces are not primitives:
temperature
energy
Instead, these are custom variables that we defined for different purposes.