Re: ClearAll ?? or what
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg102855] Re: ClearAll ?? or what
- From: Albert Retey <awnl at gmx-topmail.de>
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:08:14 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <h7371j$b28$1@smc.vnet.net> <h75nba$p3g$1@smc.vnet.net> <h77nb8$s5d$1@smc.vnet.net> <h788qn$bgs$1@smc.vnet.net> <h7b08s$h1$1@smc.vnet.net>
Hi, >>> The problem (a minor one) is that if you do this, then the first time >>> you execute such a notebook in a newly opened Mathematica session, you >>> will get the "error" message: >>> >>> Remove::rmnsm: There are no symbols matching "Global`*". >> > >> a message is a message and an error is an error. I think this is not >> meant to be an error message, but a warning message, and I think it is > > > I guess my mistake was to click the ">>" at the end of this > warnng/message/"error"/whatever, which took me to the > Mathematica documentation for Remove::rmnsm, in which I > read, quote: > > "An error occurs if there are no symbols with names that > match the string pattern given in the argument of Remove" > The purpose of my message and my intention was not to decide whether you, Mathematica or anyone else made a mistake. The purpose of the message was to show you how you can get rid of the message without defining dummy variables (which is just a workaround and could not help under certain circumstances). If that information has no value for you, feel free to ignore it. If you want to turn that into a discussion of who made which mistake I would like to add this: obviously the documentation of Remove::rmnsm (which I never found necessary to read before) contradicts my suggestion to interpret this as a warning rather than an error. I fully accept the authority of the documentation and stand corrected. But for all practical considerations I will still stick to my interpretation, just because I think it is quite clear what happens and why. And honestly I don't even feel like discussing whether that is a mistake in the documentation or implementation, just because I don't think it's worth to. hth, albert