[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Re: Unacceptable bug in Mathematica

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg93543] Re: Unacceptable bug in Mathematica
• From: David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk>
• Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:08:50 -0500 (EST)
• References: <gfgqf2$dj0$1@smc.vnet.net>

psycho_dad wrote:
> The other day, a friend discovered something that may qualify as a
> major bug in Mathematica (tested in 6.0.3):
> 
> SyntaxQ["Exp[]"]
> 
> (notice that Exp has no argument) returns
> 
> True !!!!
> 
> According to the documentation:
> 
> SyntaxQ["string"] returns True if the string corresponds to
> syntactically correct input for a single Mathematica expression, and
> returns False otherwise.
> 
> At least for me Exp[] is not syntactically correct. I expected more
> from Mathematica...
> 
> Cheers
> 

SyntaxQ looks for more basic errors - such as mismatched brackets. A lot 
of expressions - such as Exp[] are actually valid Mathematica 
expressions, even though they have usually been entered erroneously. As 
you might expect, Exp[] evaluates to itself!

David Bailey
http://www.dbaileyconsultancy.co.uk