CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonsympy
Wesley
Wesley

Reputation: 1482

How to substitute multiple symbols in an expression in sympy?

Assigning a variable directly does not modify expressions that used the variable retroactively.

>>> from sympy import Symbol
>>> x = Symbol('x')
>>> y = Symbol('y')
>>> f = x + y
>>> x = 0

>>> f
x + y

Upvotes: 35

Views: 69320

Answers (3)

Adrien
Adrien

Reputation: 489

The command x = Symbol('x') stores Sympy's Symbol('x') into Python's variable x. The Sympy expression f that you create afterwards does contain Symbol('x'), not the Python variable x.

When you reassign x = 0, the Python variable x is set to zero, and is no longer related to Symbol('x'). This has no effect on the Sympy expression, which still contains Symbol('x').

This is best explained in this page of the Sympy documentation: http://docs.sympy.org/latest/gotchas.html#variables

What you want to do is f.subs(x,0), as said in other answers.

Upvotes: 6

MSeifert
MSeifert

Reputation: 152637

Actually sympy is designed not to substitute values until you really want to substitute them with subs (see http://docs.sympy.org/latest/tutorial/basic_operations.html)

Try

f.subs({x:0})
f.subs(x, 0) # as alternative

instead of

x = 0

Upvotes: 2

Wesley
Wesley

Reputation: 1482

To substitute several values:

>>> from sympy import Symbol
>>> x, y = Symbol('x y')
>>> f = x + y
>>> f.subs({x:10, y: 20})
>>> f
30

Upvotes: 54

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