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Flat attribute and order of function definitions

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg105115] Flat attribute and order of function definitions
• From: Diego Fabregat <d.fabregat at gmail.com>
• Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:35:18 -0500 (EST)

Hi all,

Playing with some function definitions and attributes of functions I
got to a behaviour that I don't understand (example below). Depending
on the order I define function f1 and its attributes, it works or it
crashes. I know that the order of the definitions matters, so this is
kind of expected, but I would like to understand why this happens. Can
you point me to some reference that explains it?

Here you have the example:


In[1]:= Clear[f1]

In[2]:= ClearAttributes[f1, Flat]

In[3]:= f1[expr_] := expr

In[4]:= SetAttributes[f1, Flat]

In[5]:= ?f1

Global`f1

Attributes[f1]={Flat}

f1[expr_]:=expr



In[6]:= f1[c]

Out[6]= c

In[7]:= Clear[f1]

In[8]:= ClearAttributes[f1, Flat]

In[9]:= ?f1

Global`f1

In[10]:= SetAttributes[f1, Flat]

In[11]:= f1[expr_] := expr

In[12]:= ?f1

Global`f1

Attributes[f1]={Flat}

f1[expr_]:=expr



In[13]:= f1[c]

During evaluation of In[13]:= $IterationLimit::itlim: Iteration limit
of 4096 exceeded. >>

Out[13]= Hold[f1[c]]

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Flat attribute and order of function definitions
    • From: Leonid Shifrin <lshifr@gmail.com>