User talk:Arseniiv/Factorization

numbers as names

I'd try pseudo-positionals in this case. I already found out that you can write {{some template|1=value containing the '=' character}} if you have positional parameters with alternative names. This should also work if we ignore 1, 4, 6, 8, 9 and so on. What do you think? --Xenwolf (talk) 20:52, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

O, sorry, I see: not possible because of the 16-parameter limit. --Xenwolf (talk) 20:54, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Maybe prefixes instead? We could use the regex extension, see Template:EDOs for an example. --Xenwolf (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Please have a look on SandBox#Testing factor notation, only unsolved problem here is the trailing dot. --Xenwolf (talk) 21:21, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks good! Though maybe also alternatively use ^ for powers? --Arseniiv (talk) 21:28, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I read it only now (same idea nearly at the same time🙂). I think ^ looks better, it's now also possible to stuff space around the operators. --Xenwolf (talk) 21:37, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Missed your developments while extending my version. This code is way simpler but it needs obligatory *s… or that can be changed? How do you think about if * are needed?

It seems I should have written another reply here and not in User talk:Arseniiv#Infobox helper, ow. Reposting it here now:

❝ When you’re back, please look at the current version. I think it works as expected. It also does understand ^ for **, doesn’t shy from excess spaces, and makes minuses into unicode minus − which is a bit higher and wider than - and matches + and tall characters like digits: −+- −3 -3. But the code is almost unreadable and I needed to use #regex twice, otherwise the dots in the middle were deleted together with the trailing one. 2³ ⋅ 5 ⋅ 7⁻⁵ ⋅ 11 ⋅ ⋅  9 19⁻⁴ ❞ --Arseniiv (talk) 23:30, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Could it be that letting out the multiplication symbol is not a requirement? As far as I know, the symbol is left out for single-char variables, not between numbers. Wolfram alpha for example provides these syntax variants: alpha: 2^4*3^-2, alpha: 2**4*3**-2, this variant is 2^4 3^-2 accepted in the input box there (but indicated as a bit ambiguous), but we have a bit of trouble to get it correctly transferred via interwiki alpha: 2^4 3^-2, that's why I'd suggest to drop it's support to reduce confusion. My concern is also about the "service focus": you don't get the factorization itself from the template (which you actually want to get done, because it's hard) but syntax conversion (which is way easier) - I'm sure you get my point. What else should be discussed? Should I do a bit of testing? Do you want to do another iteration before? --Xenwolf (talk) 09:04, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

I’m not against mandatory multiplication, I just thought it may look easier on the eyes when editing pages. :) As about testing… First I’ll make the template easier like in your variant where #regex is used only once, and then check examples from the docs (with multiplications inserted everywhere), and I think they should cover all possibilities, so then I’ll write here for us to deploy it. Also is it time for Todo too? Ah, I hadn’t moved docs out yet, but maybe you could?.. --Arseniiv (talk) 11:22, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Now I believe this one is alright! 2 ⋅ 3 ⋅ 5⁻⁴ ⋅ 7² ⋅ 31⁻¹ --Arseniiv (talk) 11:52, 8 November 2020 (UTC)