Re: Using Defer on Dynamic Expressions?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg129748] Re: Using Defer on Dynamic Expressions?
- From: John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com>
- Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2013 03:24:54 -0500 (EST)
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- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@wolfram.com
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- References: <20130209054250.CD8036929@smc.vnet.net>
As you may know, when you do an evaluation in Mathematica, there are two
steps for preparing that evaluation to return as an output.
First, the evaluation is actually performed. Then the evaluation is
"typeset", which is to say the kernel runs MakeBoxes on the result of
the evaluation and sends the boxes back to the front end.
There are some functions which don't do anything particularly
interesting at evaluation time, but do something interesting as a result
of typesetting. For example, Grid[] is very boring at evaluation time.
When you evaluate it, it evaluates its arguments, but the Grid[] itself
still remains as something of an inert wrapper. But when you typeset
it, you suddenly get this new and interesting behavior where you get a
grid onscreen. Since CellPrint of ExpressionCell is doing typesetting,
that's the kind of behavior you're getting. E.g.,
CellPrint[ExpressionCell[Grid[{{1, 2}, {3, 4}}]]]
What may not be obvious is that things like Dynamic, DynamicModule, and
Manipulate are *exactly* like Grid in this regard. The evaluation
properties of Dynamic and Manipulate vary slightly since they hold their
arguments. But otherwise, these are functions which essentially do
nothing interesting until you typeset them. And since we know that
CellPrint of ExpressionCell does typesetting, that explains the behavior
you're seeing. So Defer isn't helpful, since all Defer does is prevent
evaluation, not typesetting.
There's no documented way to do anything different. Even if you call
MakeBoxes or ToBoxes by hand, that won't help, as they're also going to
just typeset the result. By any documented means, it looks hopeless.
But Mathematica does know how to do this. If you use the Cell->Convert
To->StandardForm menu command on a cell, it doesn't turn all Grids into
GridBoxes or all Manipulates into live active Manipulates. So it's
definitely possible. Which means, to answer this question, I'm going to
have to go way off the rails into undocumented (and unsupported)
territory.
So, the best answer I can give to your question involves calling ToBoxes
under controlled circumstances. And the controlled circumstance
involves setting the following internal variable to True:
BoxForm`$UseTextFormattingWhenEvaluating
This variable is looked at by the internal typesetting system to
determine whether to format things like Grid and Manipulate textually or
as GridBoxes and interactive interfaces. Setting it to True gets the
typesetting we want. So let's use that to define a new CellPrint-ing
function:
SetAttributes[newCellPrint, HoldAll];
newCellPrint[cell_] :=
CellPrint[
ExpressionCell[
Block[{BoxForm`$UseTextFormattingWhenEvaluating = True},
RawBoxes[MakeBoxes[cell]]], "Input"]]
Notice I'm not using Defer here because MakeBoxes is HoldAll and our new
function is HoldAll, so Defer is no longer necessary. But now I've
locally changed the behavior of our MakeBoxes call by changing
BoxForm`$UseTextFormattingWhenEvaluating in the Block[] to get the
behavior your'e looking for.
Although this is undocumented and unsupported, it works from at least v7
(and probably v6, but I didn't test it) to v9, and I don't anticipate
any reason why this would change in the foreseeable future.
John Fultz
jfultz at wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.
On Feb 8, 2013, at 11:42 PM, W Craig Carter <ccarter at MIT.EDU> wrote:
> Hello Mathgroup,
> I am doing a little notebook programming and am stuck on something:
>
> Note that these two commands differ in their behavior:
>
> CellPrint[
> ExpressionCell[
> Defer[
> Table[x, {x, 0, 10, 1}]
> ],
> "Input"]
> ]
>
> CellPrint[
> ExpressionCell[
> Defer[
> Manipulate[x, {x, 0, 10, 1}]
> ],
> "Input"]
> ]
>
> The front end seems to ignore the Defer request when a command would
> have dynamic output. Is there any way to get the same behavior (i.e.,
> that for Table) as for Manipulate?
>
> Thanks, Craig
>
>
> W Craig Carter
> Professor of Materials Science, MIT
- References:
- Using Defer on Dynamic Expressions?
- From: W Craig Carter <ccarter@MIT.EDU>
- Using Defer on Dynamic Expressions?