Information¶

Status: Stable

documented, exercised by the test suite and/or worked examples, with no known limitations recorded.

Description¶

Information[symbol]

or ?symbol returns information on symbol.

Examples (4)¶

Every input below was run against the current Mathilda build and its output recorded.

Basic examples (2)¶

In[1]:= StringQ[Information[Sin]]
Out[1]= True

In[2]:= Head[Information[Plus]]
Out[2]= String

Applications (2)¶

Information hands back the docstring as a string

In[3]:= StringQ[Information[Sin]]
Out[3]= True

Its result is a String

In[4]:= Head[Information[Plus]]
Out[4]= String

Implementation notes¶

builtin_information (src/core.c) looks up the symbol's docstring with symtab_get_docstring and returns it as a string. If none exists it returns a string No information available for symbol "..." using context_display_name for the shortened name. (The interactive ?name syntax routes to the same docstring store.)

Attributes: HoldAll, Protected.

References¶

Source: src/core.c
Specification: docs/spec/builtins/expression-information.md
Tests: tests/test_blas.c
Tests: tests/test_core.c
Tests: tests/test_eigen.c
Tests: tests/test_graphics.c

Notes & additional examples¶

Notes¶

Information[sym] returns the symbol's docstring — the same text the interactive ?sym shortcut prints — as a string, or a No information available string when the symbol has none. Every builtin registers its docstring via symtab_set_docstring, which is the store both Information and ?sym read.

Because the result is the usage text itself (long, multi-line, and specific to the symbol asked about), the examples above probe it structurally; in the REPL you would simply type ?Sin.