Re: Returning rules from functions inside a package context
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg82439] Re: Returning rules from functions inside a package context
- From: Jean-Marc Gulliet <jeanmarc.gulliet at gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 05:53:19 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
- References: <ff9rjl$4mv$1@smc.vnet.net>
Art wrote:
> The following question has been asked and answered in a variety of
> ways in this forum, but I am new to Mathematica and am still not sure what is
> best practice after doing Trace of various trivial statements for the
> past few hours.
>
> For example, I would like f[] below to return {a->1.}, not
> {A`Private`a->1.}.
>
> BeginPackage["A`"]
> f::usage = ""
> Begin["`Private`"]
>
> f[] := FindFit[{{0, 0}, {1, 1}}, a x, {a}, x]
>
> End[]
>
> EndPackage[]
>
> The use of Rule[] in different scoping constructs is confusing.
I do not know whether the following technique could qualify as the best
practice, still, I would suggest to define the variable "a" as
"Global`a", so we force its definition to reside in the *Global* context
(symbols located in the *Global* context are referred by Mathematica
just by their names). For instance, we could write the package TestRule.m as
BeginPackage["TestRule`"]
f::usage = "How to return a nice rule from a package."
Begin["`Private`"]
f[] := FindFit[{{0, 0}, {1, 1}}, Global`a x, {Global`a}, x]
End[]
EndPackage[]
Then we can check that the rule returned by the function f[] is of the
desired form.
In[1]:= << TestRule`
In[2]:= f[]
Out[2]= {a -> 1.}
Regards,
--
Jean-Marc