engine function to map over an Array

There’s currently one main function (prefix) that maps over all the elements in an array. When one wants to do some other kind of mapping/manipulation over all the elements in an array, they can do so by using a scatter block:

Array[String] arr = ['a', 'b', 'c']

scatter (i in arr) {
 String append_suffix = i + '_1'
}

Array[String] arr_with_suffix = append_suffix # ['a_1', 'b_1', 'c_1']

It would be great if there was an engine function that allowed for running functions over an Array type without requiring the boilerplate of a scatter block.

[dheiman]

Another possible suggestion is to follow the path of vectorized languages like R or MATLAB (which in my experience are the two most common languages used by bioinformatics researches), and simply have functions be Array-aware. That is, if a scalar function that takes scalar input is run on an array, a new array is returned with each value being the result of that scalar function being run on the corresponding value of the input array (implicit map).

[illusional]

Hey @patmagee, is there any way to gain some momentum on this feature request? Is list comprehension an acceptable approach? I’m happy to target something against a spec and implement it in MiniWDL maybe?