Re: Hacking Wolfram|Alpha
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg102249] Re: Hacking Wolfram|Alpha
- From: "gigabitbucket at BrockEng.com" <gigabitbucket at BrockEng.com>
- Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 06:02:39 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <h494vp$q0g$1@smc.vnet.net> <h4p6ai$l6r$1@smc.vnet.net>
On Jul 29, 5:55 am, "gigabitbuc... at BrockEng.com" <gigabitbuc... at BrockEng.com> wrote: > On Jul 23, 3:54 am, Fred Klingener <gigabitbuc... at BrockEng.com> wrote: > > > While waiting for the Wolfram|Alpha API, I've been nosing around what > > we have available, looking for ways that Mathematica can make use of W| > > A. Here's an exercise that I thought was interesting enough to share > > (and post to a place where I could find it again.) > > ... > > I'm so ashamed to reply to my own post, and I'm so ashamed to report > how much headroom there was to streamline the method to extract > Mathematica-ready data from Wolfram|Alpha output. But bat-winged gotchas lurk everywhere. Looking for the energy stored in a 18v, 3.0 amp-hour lithium ion battery, I fed "3.0 amp hour 18 volt in Joule" into W|A's query line and get back a page at "http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.0%20amp%20hour%2018%20volt%20in %20Joule&t=ff3tb01" , which reports the answer as 194 400 J. This matches the answer returned by Units`. So I fed the query line into the code from the second post above, with adjustments: << Units` Clear[W] W = First@Cases[ xml = Import[ "http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3%20Amp%20hour%2018%20volt% \ 20in%20Joule&t=ff3tb01", "XMLObject"] , Rule["title", x_] :> ToExpression[StringReplace[x, z__ ~~ "J" ~~ __ -> z]] Joule /; StringMatchQ[x, __ ~~ "J" ~~ __], Infinity] and get 77 200 Joule as a result. Never mind how long it took me to figure out the obvious. The ToExpression[] interprets the string result 194 400 as 194 x 400 and evaluates it. Slot[] Function[] Prefix[] Out[] Not Not (That's swearing in Mathematica.) I applied my customary Monte Carlo programming techniques and discovered that ToExpression could be persuaded to interpret the string the way I wanted it to iff I suggested TeXForm. In[39]:= << Units` In[80]:= Clear[W] W = First@Cases[ xml = Import[ "http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3%20Amp%20hour%2018%20volt% \ 20in%20Joule&t=ff3tb01", "XMLObject"] , Rule["title", x_] :> ToExpression[StringReplace[x, z__ ~~ "J" ~~ __ -> z], TeXForm] Joule /; StringMatchQ[x, __ ~~ "J" ~~ __], Infinity] Out[81]= 194400 Joule Maybe W|A doesn't WANT this to be easy. Cheers, Fred Klingener