# Using ;; with Part[ ]?

Posted 1 month ago
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 Hello. I found a code in the Wolfram language on the Internet and I am trying to figure it out. Please help me understand the purpose of each command digit on the second line. I tried to look at Part and Span in the help, but I still didn't get it. Thanks. data = Import["dest\\Test.xlsx", "Data"]; x = data[[1, 2 ;; - 2, 2 ;; - 2]]; 
 Sofia,The data in the file evidently has nested data that comes in as a list. let's make something up: data = {{a1, {bxx, byy, bzz, buu, bvv}, {cxx, cyy, czz, cuu, cvv}, d1} , b, c} data[[1]] gives the first element in the list (ignoring the b and c elements (which also could have been lists) {a1, {bxx, byy, bzz, buu, bvv}, {cxx, cyy, czz, cuu, cvv}, d1} next data[[1,2;;-2]] gives the second item and all items up to the second to last item in the result above: {{bxx, byy, bzz, buu, bvv}, {cxx, cyy, czz, cuu, cvv}} and once again they take the second item and all items up to the second to last item:I made a confusing typo in my first edit of this post --When you have a span, the next part range applies to each of the elements in the span: In[4]:= data[[1, 2 ;; -2, 2 ;; -2]] Out[4]= {{byy, bzz, buu}, {cyy, czz, cuu}} This is useful for matrix operations. For example, if you want to take one column of a matrix you can use data[[1,All]] to get every item in the matrix I hope this helps.Regards,Neil