Re: Picking Off Lists That Have No Numbers
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg99548] Re: Picking Off Lists That Have No Numbers
- From: Szabolcs Horvát <szhorvat at gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 06:39:41 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <gtrl29$1o5$1@smc.vnet.net>
Gregory Lypny wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> In a previous thread, "Select and Cases Give Different Answers," I
> discussed a bug, confirmed by others on the list and which Daniel
> Lichtblau of Wolfram said has been fixed in the development kernel,
> and I wonder whether we have the same problem here.
>
> I want to know if a list has no numbers in it. Here I get the wrong
> answer for the first list.
>
> FreeQ[#, _Number] & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}}
>
> yields {True, True}
> And same here.
>
> MemberQ[#, _Number] & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}}
>
> {False, False}
The pattern _Number matches expressions whose head is Number. Number
usually not used as the head of anything in Mathematica.
Head /@ {"NA", 2.3, 3/8}
{String, Real, Rational}
Try _?NumberQ instead.
>
> If I use Real or Rational for the criterion, I get the right answers,
> but that's no good if you have some lists that are mixtures of strings
> and reals and others that are mixtures of strings and rationals.
>
> FreeQ[#, _Real] && FreeQ[#, _Rational]
> & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}, {"NA", 2.3, "NA"}, {"NA",
> 2.3, 9.4}}
>
> Now this works.
>
> Count[#, _String] == Length[#] & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA",
> "NA"}}
>
> {False, True}
>
> But this does not!
>
> Count[#, _Number] == 0 & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}}
>
> {True, True}
>
> I don't mean to be a pain, but it is important in my sample selection
> procedures to be able to make the distinction between strings and
> numbers, so I'd be interested in knowing whether I'm misunderstanding
> properties such as Number or Numeric (don't really know the
> difference) or this is a bug.
>
Again, _SomeHead matches expressions with head SomeHead. All expression
have one unique head, so if something is e.g. Rational it cannot be Real
or something else at the same time.