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Re: Re: (any documentation for) linear syntax?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg107598] Re: [mg107569] Re: [mg107534] (any documentation for) linear syntax?
  • From: DrMajorBob <btreat1 at austin.rr.com>
  • Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:33:43 -0500 (EST)
  • References: <2010218151942.349141@jfultz2winlap>
  • Reply-to: drmajorbob at yahoo.com

Thanks!

Bobby

On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:19:42 -0600, John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:50:32 -0600, DrMajorBob wrote:
>>> Instead, use Edit->Enter Selection while you
>>> have an instance of the thing you're looking for selected.
>>>
>> There is no "Enter Selection" option under "Edit" on my menu bar.
>
> On Mac, it's Edit->Find->Use Selection for Find.
>
>
>> If that option DID exist, I couldn't do it unless I already had that
>> symbol or group of symbols present in the notebook, in order to select
>> them.
>
> True (except, technically, it would have to be in an open notebook; not
> necessarily the notebook you were searching in).  I didn't mean to imply
> otherwise.
>
>
>> $Version
>>
>> "7.0 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (February 19, 2009)"
>>
>> So... tell me again how I'd search for a symbol such as esc elem esc??
>
> You can use its longname.  \[Element], in this case.
>
>> Bobby
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> John Fultz
> jfultz at wolfram.com
> User Interface Group
> Wolfram Research, Inc.
>
>>
>> On Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:03:48 -0600, John Fultz <jfultz at wolfram.com>  
>> wrote:
>>
>>> If you want to search for a typeset form in the Find/Replace dialog, I
>>> strongly
>>> recommend not doing this by hand.  Instead, use Edit->Enter Selection
>>> while you
>>> have an instance of the thing you're looking for selected.  Mathematica
>>> will
>>> automatically convert it to the right form for you.
>>>
>>> That's really all you need to know.  The rest of my response is for
>>> anyone who
>>> wants to understand a bit more about the details of the system, and
>>> cares to
>>> hear any ramblings and ruminations I might have to offer about it.
>>>
>>> The form you're talking about is not documented exhaustively, but it is
>>> documented.  In the help viewer, enter the following to find it...
>>>
>>> tutorial/StringRepresentationOfBoxes
>>>
>>> This form is the only way in which boxes can be represented inside of
>>> strings.
>>> That is, by the way, where the term "linear syntax" comes from.  In a
>>> string,
>>> you must have a linear representation (as opposed to an expression  
>>> tree)
>>> because
>>> strings are a linear sequence of characters.
>>>
>>> This is all a bit unfortunate, because linear syntax can get extremely
>>> unwieldy,
>>> and it's particularly inside of strings where it becomes most unwieldy
>>> due to
>>> subtle issues with how the backslash escaping mechanism works within
>>> strings.
>>> While it's possible to create such forms by hand, we generally don't
>>> recommend
>>> it, and recommend instead using the various built-in ways of
>>> auto-converting
>>> when necessary (the documentation points to some of these).
>>>
>>> If it sounds like I'm not exactly thrilled about how we designed this
>>> aspect of
>>> the system, that's because I'm not.  There are several gotchas I  
>>> haven't
>>> fleshed
>>> out here, and with the hindsight that we now have, we could probably
>>> have done
>>> this better.  Maybe we will someday.  In the mean time, when you do  
>>> have
>>> to
>>> interact with it, it's best to let the system work it out for you.  In
>>> the case
>>> of Find/Replace, that tends to be pretty simple using the method I
>>> described in
>>> my first paragraph.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> John Fultz
>>> jfultz at wolfram.com
>>> User Interface Group
>>> Wolfram Research, Inc.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:52:49 -0500 (EST), divisor wrote:
>>>> Hello MathGroup:
>>>>
>>>> Solving a recent problem I had, Maxim mentioned that this string:
>>>>
>>>> Subscript[\[Alpha], 23]"
>>>>
>>>> can be used in the Find-Replace dialog by its evaluated equivalent
>>>> using this string:
>>>>
>>>> \!\(\[Alpha]\_23\)
>>>>
>>>> He called this "linear syntax".
>>>>
>>>> Since I will have other expressions that I need to convert into a form
>>>> like this, I tried to look this up in the help documentation. No luck
>>>> when trying these pages:
>>>>
>>>> guide/Syntax
>>>> tutorial/SpecialWaysToInputExpressions
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone tell me what this is called in the documentation or where I
>>>> can find documentation describing it?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks in advance.
>>>>
>>>> Roger Williams
>>>> Franklin Laboratory
>
>


-- 
DrMajorBob at yahoo.com


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