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Re: Print bug with -script? (quotes display)

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg121246] Re: Print bug with -script? (quotes display)
• From: Alan <alan.isaac at gmail.com>
• Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2011 03:56:06 -0400 (EDT)
• Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
• References: <201109042206.SAA21519@smc.vnet.net> <j42b57$rsl$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica at googlegroups.com

On Monday, September 5, 2011 7:17:59 AM UTC-4, Patrick Scheibe wrote:
> I don't consider this as a bug. It's just that
> the Mathematica frontend usually displays strings without the quotes: 


I'm not sure I follow.

Can you name another language where printing a string
to standard out will print the delimiters used to
create a string literal?  I cannot.  This is at least
unexpected, and I suspect is should be considered a bug.
Can you make an argument that a user should expect InputForm
rather than DisplayForm when printing to standard out
(i.e., when using the -script option)?

Btw, you cannot just convert to DisplayForm to Print the string;
that does not work at the console.  In short, the behavior of
Print is quite odd, unexpected, and I claim buggy when running
with the -script option.  (But I'm new to Mathematica and willing to
listen to reasons for this surprising behavior.)

Related: I do not understand why one must use ToString
on a StringForm when printing it in a console script.  The
behavior in a notebook is what is expected, and imo it should
be what one sees at the console.

If I understand correctly, the -script option is new, and it looks
like not enough of the Mathematica output behavior has been adjusted to
this flag.

Alan Isaac

• References:
  • Print bug with -script? (quotes display)
    • From: Alan <alan.isaac@gmail.com>