Re: Re: (any documentation for) linear syntax?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg107596] Re: [mg107569] Re: [mg107534] (any documentation for) linear syntax?
- From: DrMajorBob <btreat1 at austin.rr.com>
- Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:33:21 -0500 (EST)
- References: <201002171203.HAA21949@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: drmajorbob at yahoo.com
> Instead, use Edit->Enter Selection while you > have an instance of the thing you're looking for selected. There is no "Enter Selection" option under "Edit" on my menu bar. If that option DID exist, I couldn't do it unless I already had that symbol or group of symbols present in the notebook, in order to select them. $Version "7.0 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (February 19, 2009)" So... tell me again how I'd search for a symbol such as esc elem esc?? Bobby On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:03:48 -0600, John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com> wrote: > If you want to search for a typeset form in the Find/Replace dialog, I > strongly > recommend not doing this by hand. Instead, use Edit->Enter Selection > while you > have an instance of the thing you're looking for selected. Mathematica > will > automatically convert it to the right form for you. > > That's really all you need to know. The rest of my response is for > anyone who > wants to understand a bit more about the details of the system, and > cares to > hear any ramblings and ruminations I might have to offer about it. > > The form you're talking about is not documented exhaustively, but it is > documented. In the help viewer, enter the following to find it... > > tutorial/StringRepresentationOfBoxes > > This form is the only way in which boxes can be represented inside of > strings. > That is, by the way, where the term "linear syntax" comes from. In a > string, > you must have a linear representation (as opposed to an expression tree) > because > strings are a linear sequence of characters. > > This is all a bit unfortunate, because linear syntax can get extremely > unwieldy, > and it's particularly inside of strings where it becomes most unwieldy > due to > subtle issues with how the backslash escaping mechanism works within > strings. > While it's possible to create such forms by hand, we generally don't > recommend > it, and recommend instead using the various built-in ways of > auto-converting > when necessary (the documentation points to some of these). > > If it sounds like I'm not exactly thrilled about how we designed this > aspect of > the system, that's because I'm not. There are several gotchas I haven't > fleshed > out here, and with the hindsight that we now have, we could probably > have done > this better. Maybe we will someday. In the mean time, when you do have > to > interact with it, it's best to let the system work it out for you. In > the case > of Find/Replace, that tends to be pretty simple using the method I > described in > my first paragraph. > > Sincerely, > > John Fultz > jfultz at wolfram.com > User Interface Group > Wolfram Research, Inc. > > > On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:52:49 -0500 (EST), divisor wrote: >> Hello MathGroup: >> >> Solving a recent problem I had, Maxim mentioned that this string: >> >> Subscript[\[Alpha], 23]" >> >> can be used in the Find-Replace dialog by its evaluated equivalent >> using this string: >> >> \!\(\[Alpha]\_23\) >> >> He called this "linear syntax". >> >> Since I will have other expressions that I need to convert into a form >> like this, I tried to look this up in the help documentation. No luck >> when trying these pages: >> >> guide/Syntax >> tutorial/SpecialWaysToInputExpressions >> >> Can anyone tell me what this is called in the documentation or where I >> can find documentation describing it? >> >> Thanks in advance. >> >> Roger Williams >> Franklin Laboratory > > > -- DrMajorBob at yahoo.com
- References:
- Re: (any documentation for) linear syntax?
- From: John Fultz <jfultz@wolfram.com>
- Re: (any documentation for) linear syntax?