Re: Question about OneIdentity
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg88225] Re: Question about OneIdentity
- From: dh <dh at metrohm.ch>
- Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:47:14 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <fv42gb$5r2$1@smc.vnet.net>
Hi, the link of my previous post seems to be damaged. here it is again: http://www.verbeia.com/mathematica/tips/HTMLLinks/Tricks_L-O_16.html Daniel Szabolcs Horvát wrote: > (Scroll down for the actual question) > > I never really understood Flat and OneIdentity, and unfortunately > documentation about them is scarce. > > From the docs: > > """ > OneIdentity is an attribute that can be assigned to a symbol f to > indicate that f[x], f[f[x]], etc. are all equivalent to x for the > purpose of pattern matching. > > OneIdentity has an effect only if f has attribute Flat. > """ > > ** Some comments: > > There is also an example, listing the Attributes of Times and showing > that Times[a] evaluates to a. However, this is misleading because this > behaviour cannot be caused by Times's attributes: > > In[1]:= Attributes[f] = Attributes[Times] > Out[1]= {Flat, Listable, NumericFunction, > OneIdentity, Orderless, Protected} > > In[2]:= f[a] > Out[2]= f[a] > > If we assign the same attributes to f, f[a] will not evaluate to a. Was > the technical writer also confused, or is the example supposed to > illustrate something different than what I understood? > > > ** And now the actual question: > > According to the text in the docs (f[x] is considered equivalent to x in > pattern matching) I would expect > > MatchQ[1, f[1]] > > to give True after evaluating SetAttributes[f, {Flat, OneIdentity}]. > But it gives False. > > > ** The application: > > This came up in the following application: > > fun[HoldPattern@Plus[terms__]] := doSomething[{terms}] > > This function should handle a single term, too. Of course, there are > workarounds, but I couldn't come up with anything as simple as the > pattern above (which unfortunately does not work). >