Re: HowTo: Lookup Special Character names
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg95429] Re: HowTo: Lookup Special Character names
- From: "Q.E.D." <aoe at netzero.net>
- Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:32:25 -0500 (EST)
- References: <gkppnv$dkn$1@smc.vnet.net> <gksbpi$dta$1@smc.vnet.net>
> In article <gkppnv$dkn$1 at smc.vnet.net>, "Q.E.D." <aoe at netzero.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Entering ?\[P*] gives a formated reference list of
> > all Special Character names such as \[Pi] which match.
> > ?\[*Phi] matches \[CapitalPhi], \[CurlyPhi] and \[Phi].
> >
> > ---- MUCH snipped ----
> >
> > x \[Equivalent] y is by default interpreted as Equivalent[x,y].
> > x \[Xnor] y is by default interpreted as Xnor[x,y].
> > x \[Function] y is by default interpreted as Function[x,y].
> >
> > Q.E.D.
>
> Dear Q.E.D.,
>
> I'm dazzled -- but also dismayed -- by your knowledge on these matters.
You vastly over-estimate my faculties. You can say that of Michael Trott
from Wolfram and his four volume "The Mathematica GuideBook for ..."
books published by Springer-Verlag.
> I saw a note the other day that the average reasonably well educated
> English speaker has a total vocabulary in the range of 20,000 words, or
> perhaps somewhat larger. Mathematica at this point seems well on the
> way to having a comparable number of commands, symbols, notations,
> operators, options, special characters, and so on in its own vocabulary.
> Ordinary users of Mathematica may have to give up all the other activities
> in their life, aside from eating and sleeping, just to learn Mathematica.
>
> Would you be up for preparing a similar HowTo: post on how to obtain a
> complete list (hopefully _with definitions_ and in printable form), for
> _all_ of the non-alphabetic operators and programming "thingies"
> (whatever they're called technically) like
>
> \., \\., ->, &, @, \@, &&, &&&, etc, etc, etc
>
> that can appear in Mathematica Input cell commands? It would be very
> useful.
>
> --AES
I would refer you to the guide/Syntax page. But to get exactly what I think
you want is easy enough. Just evaluate the following in version 6 or 7:
Style[Grid[{#[[1]], Hyperlink[#[[2]], "paclet:ref/" <> #[[2]]],
ToExpression[#[[2]] <> "::usage"]} & /@
Most[System`Dump`$functionNameTable[[1]]],
Alignment -> {{Center, Left, Left}}, Frame -> All,
Background -> {{Pink, None}, {{LightGreen, LightBlue}}}],
FontFamily -> "sans-serif", FontSize -> 11]
>
> [And, is "HowTo" itself now a Mathematica command or symbol?]
>
No, "HowTo" is just intended to be a moniker to allow for an easy search.
Q.E.D.