Re: Types in Mathematica, a practical example
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg62819] Re: [mg62800] Types in Mathematica, a practical example
- From: Pratik Desai <pdesai1 at umbc.edu>
- Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 00:03:15 -0500 (EST)
- References: <200512051841.NAA21133@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Ingolf Dahl wrote:
>To MathGroup,
>
>I am not an advocate for strong typing in Mathematica, but consider the
>following simple example: I want to see if two matrices are equal. One of
>them was the result from some equation, and is given inside a rule. Then I
>write some code similar to this:
>
>
>
>a = {{1, 2}, {3, 4}};
>
>x - a /. {x -> a}
>
>
>
>I of course hope to get a matrix filled by zeroes, but if x is undefined,
>the following is returned:
>
>
>
>{{{{0, 1}, {2, 3}}, {{-1, 0}, {1, 2}}}, {{{-2, -1}, {0, 1}}, {{-3, -2}, {-1,
>0}}}}
>
>
>
>First x was assumed to be a number, and (x - a) was evaluated. Then x was
>substituted by the matrix a. No bug in Mathematica, but it was not what I
>wanted as user. It is easy to make such a mistake in the programming. Of
>course there are many ways to get around this problem, but is there any
>reasonably simple way to "type" x to be a list of lists without specifying
>the elements, in such a way that the above example works?
>
>
>
>I could do
>
>
>
>ReleaseHold[Hold[x - a] /. {x -> a}]
>
>
>
>but then we are not in the "typing business" any longer.
>
>
>
>I think this question illuminates one aspect of the typing issue in
>Mathematica. I remember that I as a newbie looked for ways to declare
>matrices, in such a way that I later could specify matrix elements
>one-by-one, without initializing them first. I soon learned that there are
>other ways to achieve similar results, but still I do not see any good
>reason why I cannot force Mathematica to give the following response from
>x-a, if x in some way is declared to be a 2x2 list of lists:
>
>
>
>{{x[[1,1]] - 1, x[[1,2]] - 2},{x[[2,1]] - 3, x[[2,2]] - 4}}
>
>
>
>I am not allowed to Unset or Clear any part of a list either. Why not?
>
>
>
>Ingolf Dahl
>
>Sweden
>
>
>
>
Hi Ingolf
Perhaps I am missing the point, and after reading some of the posts in
this thread I am not really sure what type actually means. Nevertheless
based on the definition
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MatrixEquality.html
Why not write a function such as this??
MatEQ[m_?MatrixQ, n_?MatrixQ] := (Flatten[m] === Flatten[n])
- References:
- Types in Mathematica, a practical example
- From: "Ingolf Dahl" <ingolf.dahl@telia.com>
- Types in Mathematica, a practical example