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Re: associate a parameter name with a string

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg75416] Re: associate a parameter name with a string
  • From: Szabolcs <szhorvat at gmail.com>
  • Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 03:10:44 -0400 (EDT)
  • Organization: University of Bergen
  • References: <f0v5ve$8td$1@smc.vnet.net>

luhao wrote:
> Dear all,
> I have groups of files and I'd like to call a function with each file and assign the result
> to a parameter with similar name as the file.  How can I do that?
> 
> Here are what I tried.
> 
> In[30]:=
> Map[ToExpression[StringReplace[#,"_26.txt"->"phe"]]&,FileNames["fd*26.txt"]]
> Out[30]=
> {fd01001phe,fd01002phe,fd01003phe,fd01004phe,fd01005phe,fd01phe} 
> 
> In[31]:=
> FileNames["fd*26.txt"]
> Out[31]=
> {fd01001_26.txt,fd01002_26.txt,fd01003_26.txt,fd01004_26.txt,fd01005_26.txt,\
> fd01_26.txt}
> 
> In[32]:=
> MapThread[#1=f[#2]&,{%30,%31}]
>  Set::write : Tag Slot in #1 is Protected.
> Out[32]=
> {f[fd01001_26.txt],f[fd01002_26.txt],f[fd01003_26.txt],f[fd01004_26.txt],
>   f[fd01005_26.txt],f[fd01_26.txt]}
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Thanks,
> Hao

Hi Hao,

The simplest solution to use a predefined function to do the assignment 
instead of the anonymous one:

In[1]:= assigner[x_,y_] := x=f[y]


The SetDelayed (the := operator) prevents x=f[y] from being evaluated 
before x and y are substituted with actual values.


In[2]:= MapThread[assigner, {{a, b}, {x, y}}]
Out[2]= {f[x], f[y]}

In[3]:= a
Out[3]= f[x]

In[4]:= b
Out[4]= f[y]

An alternative is to use Hold to prevent the evaluation of #1=f[#2] :

In[1]:= MapThread[Hold[#1=f[#2]] &, {{a, b}, {x, y}}]
Out[1]= {Hold[a=f[x]], Hold[b=f[y]]}

In[2]:= ReleaseHold[%]
Out[2]= {f[x],f[y]}

In[3]:= a
Out[3]= f[x]

In[4]:= b
Out[4]= f[y]


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