Re: Corruption of formulas after cut-and-paste
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg109994] Re: Corruption of formulas after cut-and-paste
- From: John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com>
- Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 07:20:49 -0400 (EDT)
You are correct, this is a bug. The correct behavior isn't to produce a warning, but to produce correct output. The problem will occur with any fraction that has a prefix '+' or '-' in the numerator, and which is part of an implicit multiplication (i.e., one designated by whitespace as opposed to an asterisk). That means you can work around the problem by denoting the multiplication explicitly with an asterisk. The problem will be resolved in the next major release of Mathematica. Sincerely, John Fultz jfultz at wolfram.com User Interface Group Wolfram Research, Inc. On Thu, 27 May 2010 06:46:21 -0400 (EDT), Yen Lee Loh wrote: > A warning to people who are trying to write packages: Cut and paste may > corrupt formulas, especially if they use complicated typesetting. (My > version: Mathematica 7.0.1.0, Linux x86-64) > > Example: Open a notebook in Mathematica (e.g., a .nb file) and type > > -1 > f[x_] :== x -----; > 2 > > This is interpreted as "negative half x". Now, open a new package and > paste > in that definition. The formatting is preserved. Save the package as an > .m > file. Reload it. Now you have > > f[x_]:==x -1/2; > > which is interpreted as "x minus half". Not good. > > I didn't see any of the usual warnings about "converting to > TraditionalForm/StandardForm/paste literally" etc. > > Maybe I am doing something wrong. Anyway, I have to try to find a > workaround. -YLL