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Orderless attribute for named functions and function arguments

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg72525] Orderless attribute for named functions and function arguments
• From: "Hannes Kessler" <HannesKessler at hushmail.com>
• Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 07:04:24 -0500 (EST)

Dear experts,

a way to use the attibute Orderless that works for functions with named
arguments in the form of rules is

SetAttributes[f,Orderless];
f[
   "Named argument 1" -> x_,
   "Named argument 2" -> y_,
   "Named argument 3" -> z_]:=
Module[{xx, yy, zz},
  {xx, yy, zz} = {x, y, z};
  (*Do something with xx, yy, zz and return the result*)
   ...];

Calling the function with arguments in different ways gives identical
results.
No need to care about the order of the named arguments:

f1 = f[
   "Named argument 1" -> 1,
   "Named argument 2" -> 2,
   "Named argument 3" -> 3];
f2 = f[
   "Named argument 2" -> 2,
   "Named argument 1" -> 1,
   "Named argument 3" -> 3];
f1 == f2
--> True

Now I want an additional dependence of the result on a name of the
function in the following form:

f[functionName_String][
   "Named argument 1" -> x_,
   "Named argument 2" -> y_,
   "Named argument 3" -> z_]:=
Module[{xx, yy, zz},
  {xx, yy, zz} = {x, y, z};
  (*Do something with xx, yy, zz*)
   ...;
   (*Return the result depending on functionName*)
   Which[
     MatchQ[functionName, "func1"],  value1,
     MatchQ[functionName, "func2"],  value2,
     ...]];

However, it is not possible anymore to assign the attribute Orderless
as

SetAttributes[f[functionName_String],Orderless];

generates an error message:

SetAttributes::sym: Argument f[functionName_String] at position 1 is
expected \
to be a symbol.

A simple solution is to reverse the definition of f:

SetAttributes[f,Orderless];
f[
   "Named argument 1" -> x_,
   "Named argument 2" -> y_,
   "Named argument 3" -> z_][functionName_String]:=...

Is there another way to reach the same goal? Reversing the definition
of f is of course completely acceptable in most cases. Nevertheless, in
some cases it may preferrable to view f[functionName] as different
functions specified by the string functionName, and the arguments to
these functions should be given in any order.

Thanks in advance,
Hannes Kessler

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Orderless attribute for named functions and function arguments
    • From: "Chris Chiasson" <chris@chiasson.name>