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Bug introduced in 10.0 and fixed in 10.1

Bug related to the Suggestion Bar Bug

While getting used to the new data type Date Object in Version 10 I noted that there seems to be a bug which on my machine (Windows 7) seems to be time-dependent, e.g. DateObject will cause an error after repeated use.

As an example all of a sudden a simple line like the following:

DateRange[DateObject[{2014, 1, 1}], DateObject[{2014, 12, 31}]]

Will return this error in Mathematica 10.0.1 :

error message

Starting with a fresh notebook I observe the following:

repeated application

The first call to DataRange will run without any error but after repeated application - note that I had to eventually abort the Table[ ... ] expression because it was not done after 5 minutes - the same statement will cause the error.

I also note that there seems to be tremendous overhead in using DateObject:

overhead

Has somebody else noted something similar and is this a known bug?

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  • $\begingroup$ Your code appears to work correctly here. Perhaps some resource (packlet) didn't load properly? $\endgroup$
    – Mr.Wizard
    Oct 24, 2014 at 10:32
  • $\begingroup$ I have not loaded anything consciously besides starting Mma 10. Note, that the code (as shown) will work on my machine without any problems at first; the problem will arise after some time only. $\endgroup$
    – gwr
    Oct 24, 2014 at 11:11
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    $\begingroup$ OK,I have reproduced it (OS X, v.10.0.1). It clearly seems to be related to the (already reported link) bug concerning the Suggestion Bar. Try to Minimize/Disable the bar and make the tests again ... This solution works for me. $\endgroup$
    – SquareOne
    Oct 24, 2014 at 13:02
  • $\begingroup$ @Square1 Thank you, that seems to indeed resolve the issue which is a definite bug then. With regard to overhead it also seems to pays off to use DateList-form to generate a DateRanges and then Map DateObject to the result. $\endgroup$
    – gwr
    Oct 24, 2014 at 14:26
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    $\begingroup$ The problem still persists in Version 10.0.2 - the suggestion bar needs to stay deactivated. $\endgroup$
    – gwr
    Dec 12, 2014 at 19:52

1 Answer 1

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As kindly posted above by Square1 the error indeed is related to the Suggestion Bar Bug and will not appear if the Suggestion Bar is disabled in the preferences.

What I still find a slight nuisance is the overhead related to DateObject:

Table[ DateRange[DateObject[{2014, 1, 1}], DateObject[{2014, 12, 31}]], {1000}]; 
// AbsoluteTiming

(* {67.372854, Null} *)

DateObject /@ Table[ DateRange[ {2014, 1, 1}, {2014, 12, 31}], {1000}]; 
// AbsoluteTiming

(* {28.443627, Null} *)

Maybe I am missing something here, but I would expect the implementation to be smarter here?

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  • $\begingroup$ The performance gap still persists in 10.0.2 $\endgroup$
    – gwr
    Dec 12, 2014 at 19:54

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