Re: Unacceptable bug in Mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg93529] Re: Unacceptable bug in Mathematica
- From: Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus at rath.org>
- Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:06:19 -0500 (EST)
- References: <gfgqf2$dj0$1@smc.vnet.net>
psycho_dad <s.nesseris at gmail.com> writes:
> 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.
But that is a syntactically correct expression, just like {} or foo[].
You are probably complaining that Exp[] doesn't have any semantics,
but this is not what SyntaxQ checks. The warning message that
Mathematica generates when you try to evaluate Exp[] is also not a
syntax error (what you would get if you enter e.g. Exp][) but a
message generated on evaluation (rather than parsing), i.e. when
applying substitution rules on the parsed expression.
HTH,
-Nikolaus
--
=C2=BBIt is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that.=C2=AB
-J.H. Hardy
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