Re: Function to detect presence of a variable in
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg109415] Re: Function to detect presence of a variable in
- From: Raffy <adraffy at gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:50:50 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <hr1584$a82$1@smc.vnet.net>
On Apr 25, 3:24 am, Leonid Shifrin <lsh... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Carlos,
>
> Here is one possibility:
>
> ClearAll[countMeIn];
> SetAttributes[countMeIn, HoldFirst];
> countMeIn[expr_, var_Symbol] :=
> Count[Unevaluated[expr], var, Infinity];
> countMeIn[expr_, vars : {__Symbol}] :=
> Map[countMeIn[expr, #] &, vars];
>
> Seems to work as you wanted:
>
> In[27]:= countMeIn[(2/x)^(x*w^4*z), {x, y, w, z}]
>
> Out[27]= {2, 0, 1, 1}
>
> In[28]:= countMeIn[(1/x)^x, x]
>
> Out[28]= 2
>
> One complication which forced me to make it HoldFirst and
> use Unevaluated is that expressions that you enter sometimes auto-evaluate
> to something else. For example, entering (2/x)^(x*w^4*z) will result in
>
> In[17]:= (2/x)^(x*w^4*z)
>
> Out[17]= 2^(w^4 x z) (1/x)^(w^4 x z)
>
> which has different counts for the variables but is otherwise equivalent to
> the original expression. With HoldFirst, the function will analyze your
> original expression.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Regards,
> Leonid
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 1:01 AM, <car... at colorado.edu> wrote:
> > I would like to have a function
>
> > k = CountMeIn[expr,var]
>
> > that returns the number of times var appears in expr, eg.
> > CountMeIn[(1/x)^x,x] returns 2. var could be a list, in which case
> > k would be a conforming list: k = CountMeIn[(2/x)^(x*w^4*z),{x,y,w,z}]
> > should return {2,0,1,1}. expr is never a list.
>
> > Tried to use Position for this, but the behavior is finicky:
> > Position[1/x,x] returns {{1,1}} but Position[x,x] or Position[1*x,x]
> > returns {{}} (why?) May be expr should be converted to {expr}
> > inside the function for safety?
Position produces results valid for Extract:
Extract[anything, {{}}] === anything, since: Part[anything] ===
anything