Re: Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg100079] Re: Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica
- From: "gigabitbucket at BrockEng.com" <gigabitbucket at BrockEng.com>
- Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 23:39:26 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200905160920.FAA26822@smc.vnet.net> <200905162224.SAA16389@smc.vnet.net>
On May 20, 11:59 pm, mark mcclure <mcmcc... at unca.edu> wrote: > On May 20, 4:58 am, "gigabitbuc... at BrockEng.com" > > <gigabitbuc... at BrockEng.com> wrote: > > 1.) Presumably, at some point under some conditions, the (XML?) output > > of Wolfram|Alpha will be made available to Import[]. Does anyone have > > any comment, rumor, or progress to report? > > I think that Wolfram|Alpha will definitely be linked tightly into Mathematica. > I've watched a few of Stephen Wolfram's video introductions and he makes > it clear that Mathematica will likely be the largest user of the > forthcoming API. > > Mark McClure This is as good a thread as any to summarize what an outsider can know (here on May 22nd) about the future implementations of the W|A / Mathematica connection. If we naively ask for: In[5]:= Import["http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi","Elements"] we get a familiar and promising result. Out[5]= {Data,FullData,Hyperlinks,Images,ImageURLs,Plaintext,Source,Title,XMLObject} Asking for In[6]:= Import["http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=pi","FullData"] we get an almost fully masked, but still promising, result: Out[6]= {{{}},{{{},{},{}}},{=A9 2009 Wolfram Alpha LLC \[LongDash] A Wolfram Research Company,Terms of Use,Privacy Policy,Participate},{{}}, {},{},{},{},{},{},{}} No big surprises there, considering the way the dialog is structured at launch. What does encourage speculation though is http : // www41.wolframalpha.com/developers.html which invites prospective developers (presumably Mathematica licensees but maybe not) to apply for an API ID number: http://www41.wolframalpha.com/apiapplication.html Reading WolframAlphaAPI.pdf suggests that W|A page data might be accessed using the developer's ID in a form like: http://api.wolframalpha.com/v1/query?input=pi&appid=xxxxx Attempting to Import[] from this page won't get a return nowof course, but the return forms described in the API documentation resemble those accessible to Import[], even though I couldn't find any mention of Import[] or any use of Mathematica at all. The API documentation discourages the idea of trying writing general purpose parsers for the data, but what the heck? Most of what I would be interested in doing would be ad hoc, just as we do for any unmasked web pages now. This is about all I can come up with and speculate about. I think we just have to wait for this to evolve. All this makes so much sense to me that I hope it comes to pass. Cheers, Fred Klingener
- References:
- Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica
- From: David Reiss <dbreiss@gmail.com>
- Re: Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica
- From: Murray Eisenberg <murray@math.umass.edu>
- Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica