Re: getting the name of a symbol
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg15453] Re: [mg15412] getting the name of a symbol
- From: "Richard W. Singerman" <rws at helix.nih.gov>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 04:21:54 -0500
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Andrew, Pass the string to the function, ie put quotes around your symbol, and then evaluate the string in your function. Example: f[y_] := Module[{valueY, stringY}, valueY = ToExpression[y]; stringY = y; Print[stringY]; Print[valueY]; ] x =5 f["x"] f prints x 5 --Richard ps. I see you're at NASA Ames. I'm currently working with Stanford Telecom at NASA Goddard. What are you working on? Richard Singerman, Ph.D. BioQuest 1761 R Street, NW Suite 2 Washington, DC 20009 Phone: (202) 986-5866 email: rws at alum.mit.edu On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Andrew Watson wrote: > Dear Matherati, > > I have a problem for which there must be a simple solution. > > Within a function > > f[a_] := blah blah blah > > I want to make use of the name of the symbol supplied as input to the > function. > > For example, if called as > > f[qxyz] > > I want to get the string "qxyz". I have looked at HoldForm and > SymbolName but nothing yet discovered seems to do the trick. > > Regards, > > > Andrew B. Watson > MS 262-2 > NASA Ames Research Center > Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000 > (650) 604-5419 (650) 604-0255 fax > abwatson at mail.arc.nasa.gov http://vision.arc.nasa.gov/ >