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Re: Select[ ] Woes

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg83160] Re: [mg83126] Select[ ] Woes
  • From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl>
  • Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:42:04 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <200711121013.FAA11004@smc.vnet.net> <9F632F2D-BF18-4433-901C-E20C5B2E28CF@mimuw.edu.pl>

On 12 Nov 2007, at 21:14, Andrzej Kozlowski wrote:

>
> On 12 Nov 2007, at 19:13, Bruce Colletti wrote:
>
>> Re 6.0.1 under WinXP.
>>
>> What's wrong with the Select statement?  x is clearly a list of  
>> positive rationals, yet none are returned.  The fragment is  
>> extracted from larger code.
>>
>> Thankx.
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>> ...
>> Print@x;
>> Print@Select[x, # > 0 &];
>> ...
>>
>> {20400/12,25200/9,12000/6}
>>
>> {}
>>
>
>
> It seems clear that your list x is not a list of numbers, since in  
> Mathematica you can't get an output like 12000/6 but instead you  
> will always get:
>
> 12000/6
> 2000
>
> This suggests that the objects at level 2 in x are not numbers,  
> perhaps they are strings or things like HoldForm[12000/6]. In the  
> latter case you could use:
>
> Cases[x, z_ /; z > 0, Infinity]
>
> Of course this won't work if the "numbers" are really strings.
>
> Andrzej Kozlowski

Sorry, the Cases suggestion was wrong. Suppose your list is actually:

x = {HoldForm[2400/12], HoldForm[25200/9], HoldForm[12000/6]};

Then using Cases as above will give you more than you want:

  Cases[x, z_ /; z > 0, Infinity]
{2400, 12, 1/12, 200, 25200, 9, 1/9, 2800, 12000, 6,
    1/6, 2000}

which is not what you wanted. In any case, whatever you have in your  
list can't have the head HoldForm as that is always visible in  
InputForm. So there is something very weird about your problem. I now  
suspect that the elements of x are strings. For example:

x = {"2400/12", "25200/9", "12000/6"}

then

Print@x
{2400/12, 25200/9, 12000/6}

(in output form)

which is,of course,, highly mnisleading  since the list members are  
not numbers.

By the way, was this supposed to be some king of "puzzle" or a joke?

ANdrzej Kozlowski





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