Re: Mathematica and Symbolic Manipulation
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg114479] Re: Mathematica and Symbolic Manipulation
- From: Daniel Lichtblau <danl at wolfram.com>
- Date: Sun, 5 Dec 2010 21:53:24 -0500 (EST)
----- Original Message -----
> From: "olfa" <olfa.mraihi at yahoo.fr>
> To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
> Sent: Saturday, December 4, 2010 5:11:06 AM
> Subject: [mg114417] Re: Mathematica and Symbolic Manipulation
> On 29 nov, 12:06, Bill Rowe <readn... at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > On 11/28/10 at 6:56 AM, olfa.mra... at yahoo.fr (olfa) wrote:
> >
> > >I'm facing a big problem with Mathematica because I need to use it
> > >SYMBOLICALLY for many functions like:
> > >1)Nest[f,x,i] (without knowing the value of i)
> > >2)Table[exp,{index,i,n}] (without knowing the values of i and n)
> > >3)Rest[m] such that m is a symbolic list (without knowing its
> > >concrete
> > >elements)
> > >How to deal with that?
> >
> > Without knowing details of what problem you are trying to solve
> > that makes you think you need the capability you describe above,
> > it is impossible to offer meaningful alternatives. Why not post
> > a specific example of what you are trying to do with what you
> > have tried?
>
> For example solving this system for the variable vP:
> Nest[f,v,j]==Nest[f,vP,jP] && j>=jP
>
> equation should give me: vP=Nest[f,v,j-jP]
>From this note, previous notes by yorself, and a recent JSC article, I gather you are interested in doing automated analysis of programming language structures. In particular some of this appears to be directed at functional programming. I do not see much chance that Mathematica will have functionality "out of the box" to do such things (though I'd be interested to learn otherwise).
It might be plausible for you and/or co-researchers to write procedures that use Mathematica (or other language) primitives for your intended purposes. But I doubt it will be an easy undertaking. Program analysis, proof of correctness, etc. is, after all, an active research area, and that sort of indicates it isn't exactly trivial.
Daniel Lichtblau
Wolfram Research