Short
Details
- Short [expr] gives a "skeleton form" of expr, with omitted sequences of k elements indicated by k.
- In StandardForm , the characters used for this output are \[LeftSkeleton] and .
- Omitted sequences of elements are printed as Skeleton objects.
- Short prints long strings in skeleton form.
- The number of lines specified need not be an integer.
- Short can be used with InputForm and other formats as well as OutputForm .
- When an input evaluates to Short [expr], Short does not appear in the output. »
- Trying to feed k as obtained from Short back as input to the Wolfram Language in StandardForm will generate an error. »
Examples
open all close allBasic Examples (2)
Shorten the display of a large polynomial to about one line:
Allow about three lines:
Properties & Relations (3)
Possible Issues (2)
The output of Short cannot be used as input if k appears in the result:
Copy the output and paste it into an input cell. The k will cause an error:
Even when an output omits Short from the top level, it is not stripped from subexpressions:
The output does not have Short in it:
However, the variable e does have Short in it, which may affect subsequent evaluations:
This Join is not evaluated due to the intervening Short :
Assign variables first and then apply Short to the result to maintain computability:
See Also
Shallow Iconize Downsample Format Skeleton StringSkeleton
Function Repository: Terse ShortInputForm
Related Guides
Related Workflows
- Shorten Long Outputs
History
Introduced in 1988 (1.0) | Updated in 1996 (3.0)
Text
Wolfram Research (1988), Short, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Short.html (updated 1996).
CMS
Wolfram Language. 1988. "Short." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 1996. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Short.html.
APA
Wolfram Language. (1988). Short. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Short.html
BibTeX
@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_short, author="Wolfram Research", title="{Short}", year="1996", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Short.html}", note=[Accessed: 17-November-2025]}
BibLaTeX
@online{reference.wolfram_2025_short, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={Short}, year={1996}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Short.html}, note=[Accessed: 17-November-2025]}