Re: TraditionalForm output and subscript variable
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg41524] Re: TraditionalForm output and subscript variable
- From: Bill Rowe <listuser at earthlink.net>
- Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 01:05:32 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
On 5/23/03 at 3:28 AM, BlimbaumJE at ncsc.navy.mil (Blimbaum Jerry DLPC) wrote: >I use TraditionalForm for output........but i notice certain outputs >concerning subscript variables that puzzle me.....and also arent' what >i want.....example... (where Subscript variable gotten from using the >Palette)... >ab*Cos[t] gives output of ab Cos[t].........however.... >a_Subscript_b*Cos[t] gives output of Cos[t] >a_Subscript_b......which is an example of what I dont want...i >Some other examples are: >a_Subscript_b*?[t] (where ? is the letter 't' or higher in the >alphabet)....outputs..... a_Subscript_b ?[t].......whereas >For ? lower then 't'....the output is ?[t] a_Subscript_b.....which >is again not what I want as the Traditional Form output..... >Any explanations for these results or just a Mathematica quirk?.. For operators like Times with the attribute Orderless, I believe Mathematica orders the output display alphabetically. In your first example a_Subscribt_b*Cost[t], a_Subscript_b has Head = Subscript and Cos[t] has Head = Cos. C comes before S so Mathematica orders the output display as Cos[t]*a_Subscript_b. For your second example, ?[t] has Head = ?. So, when ? is a letter that comes before S you get the subscripted variable at the end and when ? is a letter that comes after s you get the subscripted variable at the beginning. As for why expressions might be displayed this way, I would expect comparisions of two expressions to be greatly simplified and faster if the expressions are stored in a standard way. Obviously, the simplest way to display a stored expression would be to output its elements in the order stored.