Questions tagged [system]

Questions on implementation details and how the parts of Mathematica are arranged or configured to work. Avoid this tag for issues that are confined to a specific operating system.

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118 votes
1 answer
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Why are numeric division and subtraction not handled better in Mathematica?

There is something that has been troubling me for a while. At least through version 10.0 the performance of a / b and a - b is ...
Mr.Wizard's user avatar
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80 votes
2 answers
25k views

Mathematica 10.0.x freezes in Initializing kernels

Bug caused by paclet update and fixed by paclet update. I updated to Windows 10 and have been running Mathematica fine on it for over a month. For some reason, it has just stopped working. I don't ...
mitcheljh's user avatar
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55 votes
1 answer
2k views

List of Mathematica related acronyms and their real meaning

A few years ago, Wolfram Inc. not only started to rename things around Mathematica, a lot of new technologies and frameworks were introduced as well. Now, we are left with a lot of acronyms and ...
halirutan's user avatar
  • 112k
53 votes
2 answers
8k views

What is a "Paclet"?

I often see references to "paclets", for example the PacletManager` context, the PacletInfo.m file in some packages and next to ...
Szabolcs's user avatar
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52 votes
3 answers
845 views

What bug fixes can be implemented in init.m?

In comments on this question, Mr. Wizard suggested a community wiki to share the bug fixes/workarounds (or possibly other tricks) people load in their init.m. I ...
47 votes
3 answers
3k views

What are all the "magic" symbols in the Mathematica language?

Leonid Shifrin once wrote (excerpted): (Unevaluated) is one of a very few "magic symbols", along with Sequence and <...
Mr.Wizard's user avatar
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36 votes
2 answers
15k views

Mathematica stuck in "running" for every calculation I attempt, kernel error

Bug introduced in 11.1.1 and fixed in 11.1.1 Bug was caused by a paclet update and fixed by a paclet update. I downloaded Mathematica this morning to do an implicit polar plot. I attempt to run the ...
Ryan Unger's user avatar
34 votes
1 answer
971 views

Paclets updating awareness and tracking

Edit From the author of this question This question is obsolete Since 2016 there is a lot of new stuff concerning Paclets. They are now documented. End of the Edit It turns out that some silent ...
andre314's user avatar
  • 17.8k
33 votes
2 answers
3k views

How can I use the Klingon alphabet symbols?

Note: This functionality is presently missing. See: How to add named characters to Mathematica 10? Mathematica apparently supports the Klingon alphabet: ...
Mr.Wizard's user avatar
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30 votes
5 answers
8k views

Mathematica 11 with High DPI 4k screen

My laptop has a 17 inch 4k screen, running Windows 10 and Ubuntu 1604. Both systems are set to 2x scaling. But Mathematica 11 (released 2016-08-08) is still blurry like version 10. Is there a simple ...
Kaa1el's user avatar
  • 561
30 votes
1 answer
3k views

How can I set a keyboard shortcut to run a command?

I want to use this to add a keyboard shortcut to an undo function I wrote. The basic problem is the following: I have a command, let's say x=1, and I want to run ...
jens_bo's user avatar
  • 1,804
26 votes
6 answers
829 views

Is mathematica adequately improving?

A bit of a loaded question, but in your opinion is Wolfram's team making good progress on improving their software? I've used Mathematica for almost 10 years now, and honestly I'm personally ...
Steven Sagona's user avatar
25 votes
0 answers
1k views

How would I improve this Karaoke machine code?

I was looking at a large collection of Import/Export user suggestions the other day and it dawned on me that we finally have MIDI import in Mathematica 9, which is rather interesting since MIDI ...
Arnoud Buzing's user avatar
24 votes
2 answers
667 views

Why doesn't a Composition[] hold its arguments and what can be done about it?

Now that Composition (also RightComposition) has shorthand syntax I am more inclined to use it, however what I feel should be ...
Mr.Wizard's user avatar
  • 270k
22 votes
2 answers
580 views

Second argument of BeginPackage with nested package loading

I naively thought that the second argument of BeginPackage can simply be used to ensure the loading and availability in the ...
Szabolcs's user avatar
  • 233k
20 votes
5 answers
3k views

Which Mathematica files may be deleted to save space

After installation Mathematica 8 for Linux takes more than 3GB in the /usr/local/Wolfram/ directory. I suspect that not all of it is relevant if I want to do some occasional computations. Are there ...
highsciguy's user avatar
  • 1,660
19 votes
4 answers
884 views

Is it important that the front-end has a built-in parser?

The Notebook interface has a parser that seems aware of all operator-precedences, allowing us to step through the expressions (rather: Box-) hierarchy with Ctrl+. This is extremely convenient, saving ...
masterxilo's user avatar
  • 5,689
18 votes
1 answer
6k views

How to pause a running evaluation (and continue it later)

Is it possible to pause an already running evaluation that takes a lot of time? And then continue it later? I can suspend my computer, but that's not what I want. I would like to use my computer in ...
dan-ros's user avatar
  • 405
17 votes
1 answer
535 views

Detect if code is running in the cloud

Wolfram offers several services for running code in the cloud: Mathematica Online, Programming Cloud, CloudEvaluate, etc. How can a piece of code detect if it is ...
Szabolcs's user avatar
  • 233k
16 votes
2 answers
722 views

Detecting kernel initialization

Certain operations do not work during kernel initialization. Code from Kernel/init.m, the Autoload directory, or packages set ...
Szabolcs's user avatar
  • 233k
16 votes
1 answer
514 views

How is the mysterious Raw function used?

I have never seen an example use for the mysterious Raw function: Raw[h, "hexstring"] constructs a raw data object with head h, and with contents ...
Mr.Wizard's user avatar
  • 270k
15 votes
1 answer
412 views

Interpretation of the result of ?@

This might be a very trivial question but as a beginner, I don't know the answer. I was exploring ? and after running a cell containing ...
MathX's user avatar
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15 votes
1 answer
571 views

Order/Dependency of Styles in a Stylesheet

How exactly is a custom stylesheet processed? Which style depends on (inherits from) which other style. Consider e.g. setting a font. I would expect that setting the font for ...
NoEscape's user avatar
  • 842
15 votes
1 answer
315 views

What are the main differences between RawArray and PackedArray?

What I know: PackedArray is documented (to some extent) in "Developer Utilities Package", RawArray is just mentioned in ...
The Vee's user avatar
  • 1,790
14 votes
2 answers
667 views

Front End options

Inspired by a recent question and others like it, and not finding an existing duplicate, I ask: What is the hierarchy of Front End options? How do they work? How can their values be set and recalled?
Mr.Wizard's user avatar
  • 270k
13 votes
8 answers
3k views

Does Mathematica 11 work on MacOS Sierra?

I'm not sure if I should upgrade, so I wanted to see if anyone has used v11 sucessfully on the newest OSX? This is the discussion about the same topic on Wolfram Community.
M.R.'s user avatar
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13 votes
2 answers
1k views

Giving JLink Huge Memory by Default

I have noticed that Mathematica makes use of Java by way of JLink, for example, in the extensions such as DatabaseLink and (I think) RLink. It also seems like Java is a first-class citizen for writing ...
Eric Brown's user avatar
  • 4,396
13 votes
3 answers
936 views

Handling Kernel quit

One can use $Epilog to do something when the Kernel is quit or put an end.m file next to the ...
Kuba's user avatar
  • 136k
12 votes
2 answers
286 views

Why are there a lot of input forms in Mathematica?

I'm a novice in using Mathematica. Please can you explain why there are a lot of input forms in Mathematica such as standard, prefix, postfix and infix?
Igor Fomenko's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
619 views

Handling Kernel start. What is a full initialization stack and what place the Autoload has there?

According to: tutorial/WolframSystemSessions Initialization On startup, the Wolfram Language kernel does the following: Performs license management operations. Runs Wolfram Language ...
Kuba's user avatar
  • 136k
12 votes
1 answer
541 views

Importing parts of Packages

Some programming languages offer the possibility of importing a single function from a library, as in from x import y I'm looking to import only one function (<...
CHM's user avatar
  • 3,385
12 votes
2 answers
619 views

Catching MachineUnderflow in Version 11.3

Ilian's answer to question 72229, involves SetSystemOptions["CatchMachineUnderflow" -> False] Evidently, this worked in earlier versions of Mathematica, but ...
bbgodfrey's user avatar
  • 60.6k
12 votes
2 answers
280 views

Why is a symbol still found after changing its context?

It seems that we can change the context of symbols: In[1]:= x = 1 Out[1]= 1 In[2]:= Context[x] = "foo`"; But then x is still ...
Szabolcs's user avatar
  • 233k
12 votes
0 answers
360 views

How can I disable system updates only?

Suppose I'm quite happy with my current Mathematica installation and wish to keep the system in its current form just reliably working. Since there were already at least two cases[1,2] when a lot of ...
Alexey Popkov's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
272 views

NotebookEvaluate breaks notebook's context

Bug introduced in 10.4.1 or earlier and persists through 12.0 A support case with the identification [CASE:3813108] was created [...] I have forwarded an incident report to our developers with the ...
Kuba's user avatar
  • 136k
11 votes
1 answer
102 views

Precedence of cell group tokens over package's expressions

Bug introduced in V10.4 or earlier and persisting through V11.3 [CASE:4072996] ...
Kuba's user avatar
  • 136k
10 votes
1 answer
14k views

Is there a system Reset? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How do I clear all user defined symbols? The normal way I reset the Mathematica kernel to its initial state is through the notebook interface: ...
Reb.Cabin's user avatar
  • 8,651
10 votes
1 answer
5k views

What is included in Wolfram Extras?

I recently installed a new version of Mathematica and it includes an optional companion package entitled "Wolfram Extras". Is there any official documentation (release notes?) that details what ...
dionys's user avatar
  • 4,301
10 votes
1 answer
1k views

What makes a function ticklish?

The Advanced Dynamic Functionality tutorial informally describes a ticklish function as follows: Every time you evaluate RandomReal[], you get a different answer,...
kkm -still wary of SE promises's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
443 views

Clean up list of partial outputs for memory

Context I run long Mathematica sessions; sometimes I have Output up to Out[3000+]. Hence I would like to be able to clear out some previous outputs which do use lots of memory. Attempt I am aware ...
chris's user avatar
  • 22.6k
9 votes
2 answers
184 views

Problem with LocalSymbol

Bug introduced in 10.2 and fixed in 11.1 I have found that LocalSymbol will sometimes create and store persistent data in a directory different from and off the ...
m_goldberg's user avatar
  • 107k
9 votes
1 answer
310 views

Complete list of FrontEndResources

tl;dr I'm interested in finding a complete list of the strings that can be passed to FrontEndResource (I only need the first string, in the cases where two strings ...
b3m2a1's user avatar
  • 46.6k
9 votes
1 answer
1k views

Is It Safe to Remove the Documentation Notebooks?

I am running Mathematica 10 on linux and noted that the directories containing Mathematica's documentation come to over 3GB. Am I safe to delete these directories without affecting how Mathematica ...
owen88's user avatar
  • 355
9 votes
1 answer
488 views

Raise systemwide keypress event

Is there a way to raise system-wide "keypress" events programmatically from within Mathematica? Say "Ctrl+C" or "Ctrl+V", which all other programs can recognize? This is an attempt to gain simple ...
my account_ram's user avatar
9 votes
1 answer
123 views

Dealing with over eager shadowing messages

...
Kuba's user avatar
  • 136k
8 votes
3 answers
432 views

Hidden Notebooks?

In Mathematica, almost everything is notebook: your "Untitled-1.nb" is a notebook, Help documentation are a series of notebooks, even those windows helping you to draw things or format your notebooks ...
Wjx's user avatar
  • 9,518
8 votes
1 answer
1k views

3.4 GHz Ryzen 5 slower to diagonalise large matrix than Intel i5-6300U 2.4 GHz

Sorry that this is quite a specific question but I need to diagonalise large matrices for the problem I'm trying to solve and can't for the life of me work out what's going on: I was expecting that ...
Ram Problems's user avatar
8 votes
1 answer
146 views

Exclude inactived functions from DifferentiationOptions

The list of functions provided in SystemOptions["DifferentiationOptions" -> "ExcludedFunctions"] show which symbols will not be touched by ...
QuantumDot's user avatar
  • 19.5k
8 votes
0 answers
131 views

Current $Context of a given notebook

nb = CreateDocument[{Dynamic@$Context}, CellContext -> Notebook] It will show Notebook$$22$93500` or something similar. How ...
Kuba's user avatar
  • 136k
8 votes
0 answers
2k views

How do I determine the Mathematica version without starting the Kernel?

For the Mathematica IntelliJ Plugin, I need to validate if a chosen directory is indeed a Mathematica installation and want to extract its version. The structure of the Mathematica installation is not ...
halirutan's user avatar
  • 112k