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Re: Select and Cases Give Different Answers

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg99185] Re: Select and Cases Give Different Answers
  • From: David Bailey <dave at removedbailey.co.uk>
  • Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:37:47 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <gt6fhd$rnu$1@smc.vnet.net>

Gregory Lypny wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> 
> Suppose I have the following list that is a mixture of the string "NA" 
> and five numeric quantities.
> 
> 	theList = {"NA", "NA", -0.01315, 0.0120957, -1/41, 0.00625, "NA", 
> "NA", 5/8,  "NA"}
> 
> I want to weed out the NAs, and all of the following
> 
> 	Cases[theList, _?NumericQ]
> 
> 	DeleteCases[theList, _?StringQ]
> 
> 	Select[theList, # =E2=88=88 Reals &]
> 
> 	Select[theList, # =!= "NA" &]
> 
> work fine because each returns {-0.01315, 0.0120957, -(1/41), 0.00625, 
> 5/8}.
> 
> But I don't understand why Unequal, when used as the criterion for 
> Select as in
> 
> 	Select[theList, # != "NA" &],
> 
> fails to return the rationals, and I get only three elements 
> {-0.01315, 0.0120957, 0.00625}.  I'd appreciate any clarification on 
> the difference between UnsameQ and Unequal because my inclination in 
> most circumstances is to use an equal sign or an unequal sign to make 
> simple comparisons yet it doesn't give me the answer I expect, and I'd 
> hate to make a costly mistake somewhere down the road!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 	Gregory
> 
Remember that if Mathematica can't evaluate something, it just returns 
it unchanged. Unequal only returns True/False if it can do the 
calculation - i.e. if both sides are numbers, or both are strings, or a 
few obvious cases like xxx=xxx - otherwise it returns unevaluated. One 
might have thought it would 'know' a string would never equal a 
rational, but it would seem it doesn't! Select only picks those elements 
for which the test returns True.

UnsameQ actually compares its arguments to determine if they have the 
same structure - i.e. it always returns True or False.

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


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