Local Constants

Module allows you to set up local variables, to which you can assign values and then change them. Often, however, all you really need are local constants, to which you assign a value only once. The Mathematica With construct allows you to set up such local constants.

Just as in Module, the initial values you define in With are evaluated before With is executed.

The way With works is to take body, and replace every occurrence of x, etc. in it by , etc. You can think of With as a generalization of the operator, suitable for application to Mathematica code instead of other expressions.

In some respects, With is like a special case of Module, in which each local variable is assigned a value exactly once.

One of the main reasons for using With rather than Module is that it typically makes the Mathematica programs you write easier to understand. In a module, if you see a local variable x at a particular point, you potentially have to trace through all of the code in the module to work out the value of x at that point. In a With construct, however, you can always find out the value of a local constant simply by looking at the initial list of values, without having to trace through specific code.

If you have several With constructs, it is always the innermost one for a particular variable that is in effect. You can mix Module and With. The general rule is that the innermost one for a particular variable is the one that is in effect.

Except for the question of when x and body are evaluated, With works essentially like . However, With behaves in a special way when the expression body itself contains With or Module constructs. The main issue is to prevent the local constants in the various With constructs from conflicting with each other, or with global objects. The details of how this is done are discussed in "How Modules Work".