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Re: Question about OneIdentity

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg88242] Re: Question about OneIdentity
  • From: dh <dh at metrohm.ch>
  • Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2008 06:50:18 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <fv42gb$5r2$1@smc.vnet.net>


Hi Szabolcs,

OneIdentity is not easily explained and the writer seems to have taken a 

shortcut. A good description from Ted Ersek can be found here:

Ted Ersek

hope this helps, Daniel





Szabolcs Horvát wrote:

> (Scroll down for the actual question)

> 

> I never really understood Flat and OneIdentity, and unfortunately 

> documentation about them is scarce.

> 

>  From the docs:

> 

> """

> OneIdentity is an attribute that can be assigned to a symbol f to 

> indicate that f[x], f[f[x]], etc. are all equivalent to x for the 

> purpose of pattern matching.

> 

> OneIdentity has an effect only if f has attribute Flat.

> """

> 

> ** Some comments:

> 

> There is also an example, listing the Attributes of Times and showing 

> that Times[a] evaluates to a.  However, this is misleading because this 

> behaviour cannot be caused by Times's attributes:

> 

> In[1]:= Attributes[f] = Attributes[Times]

> Out[1]= {Flat, Listable, NumericFunction,

>           OneIdentity, Orderless, Protected}

> 

> In[2]:= f[a]

> Out[2]= f[a]

> 

> If we assign the same attributes to f, f[a] will not evaluate to a.  Was 

> the technical writer also confused, or is the example supposed to 

> illustrate something different than what I understood?

> 

> 

> ** And now the actual question:

> 

> According to the text in the docs (f[x] is considered equivalent to x in 

> pattern matching) I would expect

> 

> MatchQ[1, f[1]]

> 

> to give True after evaluating SetAttributes[f, {Flat, OneIdentity}]. 

> But it gives False.

> 

> 

> ** The application:

> 

> This came up in the following application:

> 

> fun[HoldPattern@Plus[terms__]] := doSomething[{terms}]

> 

> This function should handle a single term, too.  Of course, there are 

> workarounds, but I couldn't come up with anything as simple as the 

> pattern above (which unfortunately does not work).

> 




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