Re: Picking Off Lists That Have No Numbers
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg99538] Re: [mg99471] Picking Off Lists That Have No Numbers
- From: Gregory Lypny <gregory.lypny at videotron.ca>
- Date: Thu, 7 May 2009 06:37:51 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200905060925.FAA01807@smc.vnet.net>
Thanks Bobby,
It's crystal now or almost so. Painful yet kind of fun getting
there. For example, I came up with this way to identify the location
of the first and last numerical elements in a mixed list of strings
and numbers.
Regards,
G.
posOfFirstNumericalObs = First[Position[myMixedList, _?NumericQ]][[1]]
posOfLastNumericalObs = Last[Position[myMixedList, _?NumericQ]][[1]]
On Wed, May 6, 2009, at 4:46 PM, DrMajorBob wrote:
> All the "wrong" answers are caused by bad syntax or arguments.
>
> FreeQ[#, _Number] & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}}
>
> and
>
> MemberQ[#, _Number] & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}}
>
> both fail because Number is not the Head for numbers:
>
> Map[Head, {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}}, {2}]
>
> {{String, Real, Rational}, {String, String, String}}
>
> Head /@ {2.3, 2/3, 1 + I, Pi}
>
> {Real, Rational, Complex, Symbol}
>
> so _Number doesn't match any of the elements.
>
> What you need instead is something like
>
> FreeQ[#, _?NumericQ] & /@ {{"NA", 2.3, 3/8}, {"NA", "NA", "NA"}}
>
> {False, True}
>
> NumericQ /@ {2.3, 2/3, 1 + I, Pi}
>
> {True, True, True, True}
>
> All the other problems are similar.
>
> Bobby
>
> On Wed, 06 May 2009 04:25:48 -0500, Gregory Lypny <gregory.lypny at videotron.ca
> > 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}
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>> Gregory
>>
>
>
>
> --
> DrMajorBob at bigfoot.com
- References:
- Picking Off Lists That Have No Numbers
- From: Gregory Lypny <gregory.lypny@videotron.ca>
- Picking Off Lists That Have No Numbers