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User-defined assignment is ignored in large Table[ ] computation

Posted 2 years ago

I observed a strange behavior when I create a definition for a build-in function like Abs[]. If I use them e.g. in Table, the user definition is ignored when the table becomes large. Here is the example to illustrate this phenomena:

Unprotect[Abs]
Abs[x_] := x^2

Small table:

Table[Abs[i], {i, 30}]

{1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 121, 144, 169, 196, 225, 256, 289, 324, 361, 400, 441, 484, 529, 576, 625, 676, 729, 784, 841, 900}

Larger table:

Table[Abs[i], {i, 300}]

{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, <<277>>, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300}

I use Mathematica 10.0.2 (x64) on Windows 10

POSTED BY: Martin Guttmann
3 Replies
Posted 2 years ago

Hi Martin

Compare

Table[Abs[i], {i, 249}] // Trace
Table[Abs[i], {i, 250}] // Trace

When the upper bound exceeds 249 Table probably uses a version of Abs that is internal and optimized for long lists.

Lesson: Modifying built-in functions is risky and unpredictable.

What problem are you trying to solve? Perhaps there is a better solution for it rather than this example.

POSTED BY: Rohit Namjoshi

Thanks for your reply. There is no real problem to be solved, I just want to understand the internals of Mathematica.

So, overwriting a function do not guarantee the replacement at all kind of situations.

What about using UpSetDelayed?

Abs[f[x_]] ^:= x^2
Table[Abs[f[i]], {i, 30}]
POSTED BY: Martin Guttmann
Posted 2 years ago

That is certainly a much safer operation because the definition is associated with f, not Abs. For more details take a look at this and this.

POSTED BY: Rohit Namjoshi
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