Mathematica Tutorial

Patterns Involving Alternatives

patt₁|patt₂|...

a pattern that can have one of several forms

Specifying patterns that involve alternatives.

This defines h to give p when its argument is either a or b.

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The first two cases give p.

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You can also use alternatives in transformation rules.

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Here is another example, in which one of the alternatives is itself a pattern.

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When you use alternatives in patterns, you should make sure that the same set of names appear in each alternative. When a pattern like (a[x_]|b[x_]) matches an expression, there will always be a definite expression that corresponds to the object x. If you try to match a pattern like (a[x_]|b[y_]), then there still will be definite expressions corresponding to x and y, but the unmatched one will be Sequence[ ].

Here f is used to name the head, which can be either a or b.

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