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I'd like to display only the variable (indexed variable) name (in symbol form, not in string form) instead of its value in Mathematica. Say I have a variable foo[i] with i being the index, How do I get something like {foo[1], foo[2]} as output?

I have tried i = 1; HoldForm[foo[i]] but Mathematica seems to hold all evaluations, including replacing the index i with its value. HoldForm[foo[i]] /. i -> i also won't work.

There exists another thread in SE that connects with this question, but it doesn't seem to work either.

Display variable name instead of value

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  • $\begingroup$ HoldForm[foo[i]] /. i -> 1 or HoldForm[foo[i]] /. i -> j will work. $\endgroup$
    – Jinxed
    Mar 18, 2015 at 14:33
  • $\begingroup$ Also With[{i=1},HoldForm[foo[i]]] works. As does i=1;With[{i=i},HoldForm[foo[i]]]. $\endgroup$
    – celtschk
    Mar 18, 2015 at 16:43
  • $\begingroup$ Related: "Elegant manipulation of the variables list." $\endgroup$
    – Alexey Popkov
    Mar 19, 2015 at 12:14

1 Answer 1

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I believe this is what you're seeking:

HoldForm[foo] /@ Range[2]

and if you want individual elements:

(HoldForm[foo] /@ Range[2])[[1]]

and

(HoldForm[foo] /@ Range[2])[[2]]
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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for you answer. Yes this is working, but what if I want to extract the elements in the list? HoldForm[foo] /@ {i}[[1]] won't work. $\endgroup$
    – Vincent Wang
    Mar 18, 2015 at 14:40
  • $\begingroup$ Well I also discovered HoldForm[foo]@i :) $\endgroup$
    – Vincent Wang
    Mar 18, 2015 at 14:50

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