Sequence

Sequence(start, end, step)

Creates a list of numbers from «start» to «end» by equal increments (or decrements) of «step». You may omit «step», which defaults to 1. «step» must be a positive number. «start», «end», and «step» must be deterministic scalar numbers, not arrays and not uncertain. See Expressions that don't array-abstract.

You can also select this function using the Sequence option from the expr menu.

The expression m .. n using the operator ".." is equivalent to Sequence(m, n, 1).

Examples

If «end» is greater than «start», the sequence is increasing:

Sequence(1, 5) → [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

If «start» is greater than «end», the sequence is decreasing:

Sequence(5,1) → [5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

If «start» and «end» are not integers, and you omit «step», it rounds them:

Sequence(1.2, 4.8) → [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

If you specify «step», it can create non-integer values:

Sequence(0.5, 2.5, 0.5) → [0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5]

Optional parameters

Strict

Normally, if «start» is larger than «end», and «step» is positive, the sequence decrements by «step». As a result of this convention, a sequence will always have at least one element.

There are cases where a strict sequence is desired, such that the sequence proceeds from «start» in increments of «step», according to the sign of «step». When «step» proceeds in the direction away from «end», then a zero-length sequence results. For example, in a For..Do loop, you may want zero iterations when «end» is less than «start». Specifying the optional parameter «strict» as true obtains a strict Sequence, for example:

Sequence(x1, x2, strict: True)

When «strict» is specified as True, the step may be negative, and must be negative to obtain a decreasing sequence. For example:

Sequence(5, 1, strict: True) → []

Sequence(5, 1, -2, strict: True)  → [5, 3, 1]

DateUnit

If you want to create a sequence of dates or times, successive days or hours, the first day of each week, month, or year, and so on, you can set the optional «dateUnit» parameter to the relevant date/time character. For example:

Sequence(MakeDate(2009, 1, 1), MakeDate(2010, 12, 31), 4, dateUnit: "M") → 
[1-Jan-2009, 1-May-2009, 1-Sep-2009, 1-Jan-2010, 1-May-2010, 1-Sep-2010]

These are the characters defining each date and time unit:

• Years (dateUnit: 'Y')
• Months ('M')
• Days ('D' this is the default if «dateUnit» is omitted)
• Weekdays ('WD')
• Hours ('h')
• Minutes ('m')
• Seconds ('s').

Character Sequences

You can specify «start» and «end» each as a character, and it will generate a sequence of characters in ASCII order:

Sequence('T', 'f') → 
['T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z', '[', '\', ']', '^', '_', '`', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']

Sequence('!', '@') → 
['!', '""', '#', '$', '%', '&', ''', '(', ')', '*', '+', ',', '-', '.', '/', '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', 
'7', '8', '9', ':', ';', '<', '=', '>', '?', '@']

Spreadsheet Column Name Sequences

You can also use Sequence to generate a sequence of spreadsheet column names -- which go from 'A' to 'Z', then 'AA' to 'AZ', 'BA' to 'BZ', ... 'ZA' to 'ZZ', then 'AAA'..'ZZZ', 'AAAA'..'ZZZZ', etc., up to six letters total. In this case, «start» and «end» must contain one or more letters, either all uppercase or all lowercase:

Sequence('W','AF') → ['W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z', 'AA', 'AB', 'AC', 'AD', 'AE', 'AF']

History

• Analytica 4.4 or patch 4.3.3
  • Spreadsheet column name sequences
  • Character sequences
• Analytica 4.2
  • Strict sequences
  • Date sequences