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|x| as the absolute value of x?

Posted 5 years ago
POSTED BY: Nico G
6 Replies

(|) single "rawverticalbar" - this symbol is defined as Alternatives built-in symbol.

Example:

{a, b, c, d, a, b, b, b, d, d, c, b, b} /. a | b | d -> x

So, I think that´s why ..|b|.. cannot be Abs[b].

See: https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Alternatives.html

POSTED BY: Claudio Chaib

Abs and RealAbs have different derivatives. Abs is meant to work in the complex domain, where it is not differentiable. RealAbs is differentiable in the real domain. Compare:

D[Abs[x], x]
D[RealAbs[x], x]
% // PiecewiseExpand

I wish there was a RealIntegrate that behaved this way:

RealIntegrate[1/x, x]

Log[RealAbs[x]]
POSTED BY: Gianluca Gorni

How would you interpret |a|b|c|? As Abs[a*Abs[b]*c] or as Abs[a]*b*Abs[c]?

Have you considered using \[LeftBracketingBar] and \[RightBracketingBar]?

One more complication is that we have to deal with Abs[x] and RealAbs[x]. TraditionalForm does not make any visual distinction between the two, except in the Tooltip.

POSTED BY: Gianluca Gorni
Posted 5 years ago

It might not be completely impossible to implement. Look up $PreRead in the documentation. Learning how to use that to implement your idea would take some time, study, experimenting and almost certainly some failures. Implementing your idea might break some parts of Mathematica, perhaps in surprising and possibly even impressive ways, and break some people's programs. But that doesn't mean it is impossible to do. Just be careful and don't get yourself or anyone else into trouble.

POSTED BY: Bill Nelson
Posted 5 years ago
POSTED BY: Nico G
Posted 5 years ago

Oh I didn't know about this. Thanks!

It still would be a cool feature, but I guess this makes it impossible to implement.

POSTED BY: Nico G
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