Re: rules and lists
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg54246] Re: rules and lists
- From: "Wolf, Hartmut" <Hartmut.Wolf at t-systems.com>
- Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 21:50:38 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
>-----Original Message----- >From: Erich Neuwirth [mailto:erich.neuwirth at univie.ac.at] To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net >Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 4:17 AM >To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net >Subject: [mg54246] rules and lists > >I would like to replace sublists of a list to be replaced by >another list, such that for example the rule {1,2}->{1,2,3} >wout tranform {1,2,3,3,1,2} into {1,2,3,3,3,1,2,3} Simply >gibbin the transformation rule in the form >{x___,1,2,y___}->{x,1,2,3,y} does not work. >What is the idiom to do what I want? > > Eric, In[1]:= {1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2} /. {x___, 1, 2, y___} -> {x, 1, 2, 3, y} Out[1]= {1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 1, 2} doesn't do, because ReplaceAll just stops at the first match and replacement. ReplaceRepeated doesn't help in your case, because the replacement contains the search pattern, and thus will loop indefinitely: In[2]:= {1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2} //. {x___, 1, 2, y___} -> {x, 1, 2, 3, y} Out[2]= $Aborted To avoid that, make your replacements in two steps, first replace the searched sequence 1,2 by a symbol In[3]:= {1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2} //. {x___, 1, 2, y___} -> {x, $, y} Out[3]= {$, 3, 3, $} and then replace that symbol by the substitution sequence 1,2,3: In[5]:= {1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2} //. {x___, 1, 2, y___} -> {x, $, y} //. {x___, $, y___} -> {x, 1, 2, 3, y} Out[5]= {1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 1, 2, 3} -- Hartmut Wolf