Re: pattern matching quirks
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg29367] Re: [mg29351] pattern matching quirks
- From: Andrzej Kozlowski <andrzej at tuins.ac.jp>
- Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 02:23:37 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
That the default value for a pattern in a function definition must much a
pattern seems to me obvious. After all, it is by matching the default value
to the pattern that Mathematica finds out what it should return. How else
could this be accomplished?
As for your problem, it seems to be due to a your use of RepeatedNull. It
can be demonstrated on a simpler example:
In[1]:=
f[a:Alternatives[x,y...]]:=1
In[2]:=
f[x]
Out[2]=
f[x]
In[3]:=
f[y]
Out[3]=
1
But,
In[4]:=
MatchQ[x,Alternatives[x,y...]]
Out[4]=
True
In[5]:=
MatchQ[y,Alternatives[x,y...]]
Out[5]=
True
The same thing without RepeatedNull (...) works as expected.
On the other hand,
In[6]:=
Clear[f]
In[7]:=
f[x|y...]:=1
In[8]:=
f/@{x,y}
Out[8]=
{1,1}
so it looks like the problem is with the combination of RepeatedNull and
Pattern. In fact it seems it can be further reduced to the following
behaviour:
In[9]:=
MatchQ[x,a:(x|y...)]
Out[9]=
True
In[10]:=
MatchQ[g[x],g[a:(x|y...)]]
Out[10]=
False
but
In[11]:=
MatchQ[g[y],g[a:(x|y...)]]
Out[11]=
True
and
In[12]:=
MatchQ[g[x],g[(x|y...)]]
Out[12]=
True
I admit that this does seem like a "quirk". On the other hand I can't see
why you should ever need to use a pattern like
Alternatives[x,RepeatedNull[y]] which ought to be equivalent to simple
Alternatives[x,y].
--
Andrzej Kozlowski
Toyama International University
JAPAN
http://platon.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/andrzej/
http://sigma.tuins.ac.jp/~andrzej/
on 01.6.14 3:27 PM, Michael at michael at science.edu wrote:
> I am trying to write a function which matches only on a specific pattern of
> arguments, some of which can be optional. The problem I am having is that
> certain complex patterns aren't being matched under conditions which should
> match.
>
> For example:
>
> In[1] := test[1, inputs : (X["4"] | X[X[_Integer]] ...) : X["4"]] := inputs
>
> In[2] := test[1]
> Out[2] := X[4]
>
> This is the expected behavior. However if I redefine the function so that
> the alternatives are collected within a single head, it doesn't work:
>
> In[3] := Clear[test];
> test[1, inputs : (X["4" | X[_Integer] ...]) : X["4"]] := inputs
>
> In[4] := test[1]
> Out[4] := test[1]
>
> In[5] := MatchQ[X["4"], (X["4" | X[_Integer] ...])]
> Out[5] := True
>
> MatchQ says that my default values matches the given pattern. Through some
> experimentation I had discovered that the function will NOT be called if the
> default value does not match the pattern for the optional argument. This is
> annoying (and undocumented I think) because I would like to insert a
> function call to generate the default value. This does not work right
> either because the default value appears to be evaluated when the function
> is defined, and wrapping it with Hold causes it to fail the above pattern
> match. So instead I have to assign it to some inane value (hence the
> alternatives) and then do a rule transformation in the function itself (not
> shown above).
>
> So here are my questions:
> 1. Why does the default value for a pattern have to match that pattern?
> 2. Why is the default value seeming to be evaluated when the function is
> defined?
> 3. Why do some patterns pass MatchQ but not result in a function call?
> Notably, X[a|b] versus X[a]|X[b]?
> 4. What other quirks should I be aware of that I haven't run into yet? :-)
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael Schmidt
> michael at science.edu
>
>
>
>
>