Re: Problem overriding simple built-in functions
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg28800] Re: [mg28796] Problem overriding simple built-in functions
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <andrzej at tuins.ac.jp>
- Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 01:32:53 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
The reason for all this is thet GCD has the Attribute Listable:
In[1]:=
Attributes[GCD]
Out[1]=
{Flat,Listable,Orderless,Protected}
This means that GCD[{2,3}] is just {GCD[2],GCD[3]} which is just {2,3}. In
order for your over-ride to work you will have to clear the Listable
attribute of GCD with ClearAttributes[GCD,Listable] . You will, of course,
loose all the benefits of listability.
--
Andrzej Kozlowski
Toyama International University
JAPAN
http://platon.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/andrzej/
http://sigma.tuins.ac.jp/~andrzej/
on 01.5.13 4:28 PM, Jean-Christophe Deschamps at jchd at worldnet.fr wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm told the following occurs under Mathematica v4.0:
>
> In[1]:= GCD[{3, 6}]
> Out[1]= {3, 6}
> In[2]:= GCD[x_List] := Apply[GCD, x]
> In[3]:= GCD[{3, 6}]
> Out[3]= GCD[{3, 6}]
> In[4]:= Apply[GCD, {3, 6}]
> Out[4]= 3
>
> Why is it so? It looks like the override is ignored, but why?
>
> The same exerpt seems to work fine under version 2.x.
>
>