Producing cleaner Mathematica output

Question

I asked this in chat and it turns out it would make for a good question make a posting for. I am writing up a handout type notebook and I'd like to have some clean output for presentation's sake.

Say I have multiple functions I wish to evaluate in one cell. How can I force the output to a more condensed space/format such as one line?

What Is Happening

Input:

a = 1 + 1
b = 1 + 2

Output:

2

3

What I Have Been Doing

I have been using the List[] command.

List[a = 1 + 1,
     b = 1 + 2]

But this gives me some 'extraneous' curly braces.

{2, 3}

What I Want

Output:

2, 3

Other

The fix should keep the formatting of output functions (should not reduce functions to one-line input style syntax).

Answer 1

Try using semi-colons to suppress normal output and then use Print to print what you want exactly:

a = 1+1;
b = 1+2;
Print[a,", ",b];

which gives:

2, 3

Answer 2

Here is an approach using CellEvaluationFunction:

Use the Options Inspector and set CellEvaluationFunction to:

(Map[ToExpression, Row[Apply[Riffle[#, "\", \""]& , #]]]& )

This is best combined with style sheets to define a style that automatically uses this function. (Ask if you need help setting this up.)

To use this more simply, or simply to try it out, evaluate this to create a new Input cell, then type your input into that cell:

CellPrint[
 Cell[BoxData[""], "Input", 
  CellEvaluationFunction ->
   (ToExpression /@ Row[Riffle[#, "\", \""] & @@ #] &)]]

The result should look like this:

Answer 3

I highly doubt something that answers your question is useful in any way, since your plan is to strip output of syntactically relevant information, but here we go:

Mathematica provides a few commands that are applied to input/output automatically:

$Post

$Post is automatically applied to all expressions before their output is printed. This alters the data, e.g. setting $Post = N will generate numerical data only.

{1 + 1, 1 + 2}

(* Print lists in column form *)
$Post = If[Head[#] === List, Column[#]] &;

{1 + 1, 1 + 2}    
(* You can't add 1 to a column :-( *)
% + 1

(* Reset the variable to default *)
$Post =.
{1 + 1, 1 + 2}

$PrePrint

$PrePrint is similar to $Post, only that it does not affect output but only the printed version, i.e. the visualization. Setting this to N will preserve the normal Mathematica workflow in the back end, only the display is different.

{1 + 1, 1 + 2}

(* Print lists in column form *)
$PrePrint = If[Head[#] === List, Column[#]] &;

{1 + 1, 1 + 2}
(* Only printing is affected, you can still
   do normal arithmetic with the output *)
% + 1

(* Reset the variable to default *)
$PrePrint =.
{1 + 1, 1 + 2}

$Pre

$Pre is applied after the input has been put in. Make sure make sure to include a Hold somewhere, otherwise it's pretty much the same as $Post (see remarks in the documentation).

Answer 4

You could use Format

Format[myInput[a___]] := DisplayForm@RowBox[Riffle[{a}, ","]]

Then

myInput[a = 1 + 1, b = 1 + 2]

(* 
 ==> 2, 3
*)

More complicated input:

myInput[D[Cos[Log[x]^2], x], Integrate[Sin[1/x], x], Integrate[Log[Cos[x]], x]]

TraditionalForm:

myInput[D[Cos[Log[x]^2], x], Integrate[Sin[1/x], x], Integrate[Log[Cos[x]], x]] 
      // TraditionalForm

Answer 5

How about:

ExportString[{{a = 1 + 1, b = 1 + 2}}, "CSV"]

Answer 6

I'm not sure if this will help, but you can try StringForm along with CellPrint and Print. I've been messing around with something similar and I've almost got it working. To duplicate the output that you want, you can do this:

a = 1 + 1;
b = 1 + 2;
CellPrint[Print[StringForm["``, ``", a, b]]]

Maybe too specific for your purpose?