Output syntax

The mirror of input syntax: the forms an expression comes back out in. Any output cell (<notatio-out>) offers these through the form selector on its right — and they compose (TeXForm of a MatrixForm is the \begin{pmatrix} string).

The forms

• Display — typeset math: StandardForm, TraditionalForm (conventional notation), MatrixForm (a List as a bracketed matrix).

• Structure — TreeForm: the expression as a tree of heads, opened one level at a time, each closed node summarised as a line of InputForm. How a reference page shows a head's defining expression down to the heads it bottoms out in.

• Text — a serialised string: MathJSON (the AST), TeXForm (LaTeX), AsciiMathForm (plain-text math), and MathMLForm — presentation MathML, which unlike the others does not round-trip: there is no MathML parser on the other side.

• Code — source in another language, a translation whose semantics may diverge from compute-engine's. Each seeds an editable try-it cell and flags footguns: Listed in the order the CLI's -f names them (FORMS, packages/cli/src/engine.ts):

  • Wolfram FullForm — Wolfram Language Head[…].
  • NumPy — Python/NumPy source.
  • GLSL — OpenGL shader source.
  • WGSL — WebGPU shader source, and GPUShaderForm, the whole shader a GPU path here would run for the expression.
  • JavaScript — JS source (the default eval target).

On the code forms

A code form is a translation, and translations aren't always faithful — Wolfram rounds half-to-even, NumPy has no rationals, and so on. Where that happens we flag it. The longer-term aim is to compile into something slightly different so the result matches compute-engine's semantics; until then, the alterations and footguns are documented on each page.