Re: List vs. array in Mathematica
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg132575] Re: List vs. array in Mathematica
- From: Richard Fateman <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu>
- Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 05:26:57 -0400 (EDT)
- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@mail-archive0.wolfram.com
- Delivered-to: l-mathgroup@wolfram.com
- Delivered-to: mathgroup-outx@smc.vnet.net
- Delivered-to: mathgroup-newsendx@smc.vnet.net
- References: <lib06v$i5p$1@smc.vnet.net>
On 4/12/2014 2:15 AM, andymhancock at gmail.com wrote:
> In mathematica, is an array simply a list of uniform depth?
No. An Array is a List. For example,
z= Array[f,4] returns{f[1],f[2],f[3],f[4]}
Head[z] returns List
z[[2]]={1,{2,3}}
is perfectly legal.
Note, there is a program Array[ ] which can be used to initially
construct Lists.
Both
> terms are used in the documentation, but I haven't run across an
> explicit explanation of why two terms are needed for the same
> construct.
They aren't. The term "array" is used in computer science and
conventional programming languages for a different data structure
with different storage requirements and different access efficiencies.
So I'm wondering if their relationship is.
>
Their relationship with respect to Mathematica is: the proprietors
of the program define arrays as lists, ignoring conventions in computer
science. One can speculate as to why.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor