Re: A simple swap function
- Subject: [mg2226] Re: [mg2132] A simple swap function
- From: wagner at goober.cs.colorado.edu (Dave Wagner)
- Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 06:34:35 GMT
- Approved: usenet@wri.com
- Distribution: local
- Newsgroups: wri.mathgroup
- Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
- Sender: daemon at wri.com ( )
In article <45cvu4$5tc at ralph.vnet.net>, Richard Mercer <richard at seuss.math.wright.edu> wrote: > > > I think I must be missing something straightforward. >> I want a function to swap the values of 2 lists. I >> defined ab={a,b}, and ba={b,a}, and >> swap[v1_,v2_]:=Module[{temp=v1},v1=v2;v2=temp;], and I >> get an Iteration limit exceeded error. When I look at >> ab, it looks like {Hold[a],Hold[b]} (or maybe >> {Hold[b],Hold[a], I don't remember), and ba looks >> opposite. When I tried to use the same function on >> numbers, it didn't work either. What's wrong with what >> I'm doing, and how can I do what I want to do? > >All of this is unnecessary. >Assuming the variables a and b have been assigned values, > >the assignment > >{a,b} = {b,a} > >works. Try it! I do NOT recommend this if a and b have not been >assigned values! Following up to my earlier posting on this topic, which was done while on the road and in some haste, I can now elaborate. Fleck showed that it was impossible to write a correct swap function in Algol using the call-by-name parameter transmission mechanism: A.C. Fleck, 1976. On the impossibility of content exchange through the by-name parameter transmission mechanism. ACM SIGPLAN Notices 11(11):38-41. Here is an example of what kinds of problems occur, using the Mathematica-specific mechanism suggested by Richard Mercer above: In[23]:= s = {3,1,2}; i = 2; {i, s} Out[23]= {2,{3,1,2}} In[24]:= {i, s[[i]]} = {s[[i]], i}; {i, s} Out[24]= {1,{2,1,2}} The result ought to be {1, {3, 2, 2}}. After some reflection I think that may be oversimplifying to conclude that something that's impossible to do in Algol is also impossible to do in Mathematica. I've thought about trying to write a correct swap function using constructs such as Hold and With to "freeze" the expressions being swapped. Unfortunately, you can only scope symbols, not entire expressions, so my strategy would fail when trying to swap s[[i]] with s[[s[[i]]]], for example. So while I won't go so far as to state that this is impossible to do in Mathematica, it seems to be very hard, and given Fleck's result I wouldn't waste too much time on it. This is not to say, of course, that the {a,b} = {b,a} trick isn't useful, as long as you realize its shortcomings. Dave Wagner Principia Consulting (303) 786-8371 dbwagner at princon.com http://www.princon.com/princon