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pattern match and formatting challenge

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg68931] pattern match and formatting challenge
• From: "Chris Chiasson" <chris at chiasson.name>
• Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2006 07:16:04 -0400 (EDT)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I thought you might enjoy a pattern matching challenge and helping me
out at the same time. :-)

The challenge is, detect any expression that can be formatted as only
a linear sequence of unnested superscripts and subscripts. For bonus
"points", cause the expression to be formatted as mentioned here:

http://www.docbook.org/tdg5/en/html/equation.html

AFAIK, I have an expression that will do this, but only for a subset
of the possible expressions:

nonRowBoxBoxesPatternObject=Module[{x},Alternatives@@DeleteCases[ToExpression/@
	Cases[Names["System`*"],x_/;StringMatchQ[x,___~~"Box"]],RowBox]];

stringFormattableQ[expr_]:=FreeQ[ToBoxes[expr],nonRowBoxBoxesPatternObject];

If stringFormattableQ is true, then the formatting is done by via
ToString[expr].

-- 
http://chris.chiasson.name/

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  • Re: pattern match and formatting challenge
    • From: "Chris Chiasson" <chris@chiasson.name>