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Re: extracting variables from an expression

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg44178] Re: [mg44111] extracting variables from an expression
  • From: Daniel Lichtblau <danl at wolfram.com>
  • Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 06:26:29 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <200310231115.HAA23760@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Peter Schinko wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm looking for a function that extracts all variables from a boolean
> expression.
> For example:
> x || y || z
> should return something similar to {x, y, z}.
> 
> Is there a similar function in Mathematica? If so, how does it work?
> 
> Thanks very much
> Peter


Several replies show nice ways to do this assuming variables are atomic.
If you want to allow variables to be more general non-numeric things,
e.g. x[1], you might convert the input to a nested list structure and
use Variables.

listify[expr_] := expr /. {Or->List,And->List,Not->List,Xor->List}

In[15]:= Variables[listify[
  a&&b||c&&Not[d&&a||a[2]]&&b[w]||d&&a[2]&&Sin[x]||Pi||Sin[2]]]
Out[15]= {a, b, c, d, a[2], b[w], Sin[x]}


Daniel Lichtblau
Wolfram Research


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