MathGroup Archive 2010

[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]

Search the Archive

Re: How to Explain This Behavior of Simple Procedures?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg109642] Re: How to Explain This Behavior of Simple Procedures?
  • From: Richard Fateman <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu>
  • Date: Sun, 9 May 2010 07:51:34 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <hs3gjn$ru6$1@smc.vnet.net>

James Stein wrote:
...

> 
> 
> My motivation here is to allow a procedure to return one or more subsidiary
> results in variables provided by the caller.

I suggest you re-think this motivation, since it leads to subtle bugs, 
and is probably difficult to do in Mathematica.  I suggest you have a 
routine return a list of values. You can pick them out this way..

>  {a,b,c} = {1,2,3}   assigns values to a and b and c.

This design abides more by functional abstraction.

I haven't looked at the details of your example, but Mathematica's 
evaluation of names that are locally bound is a mess.

Good luck.


> 


  • Prev by Date: Re: Plot this?
  • Next by Date: Re: Easy question, please help to run a function n times
  • Previous by thread: How to Explain This Behavior of Simple Procedures?
  • Next by thread: Re: How to Explain This Behavior of Simple Procedures?