Comparison with Mathematica¶

WolframScript is the official command line interface for the Wolfram Language provided by Wolfram Research, the company behind the Wolfram Language.

Mathematica is the official frontend with a notebook interface. It is implemented as a cross-platform desktop application and is available for macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Implementation Language

C++

First Release

1988

License

Proprietary

Woxi is our alternative to WolframScript and Woxi Studio is our alternative to Mathematica. They try to be as compatible as possible, but there are a few features, they intentionally deviate from to provide a better user experience.

WolframScript vs Woxi¶

• Woxi supports Unicode characters \ For example to calculate the circumference of a circle with radius 4:

  woxi eval 'N[2π * 4]'
  

• Woxi runs .nb notebooks directly \ WolframScript can only execute .wls / .m script files, but Woxi can evaluate the Input/Code cells of a Mathematica .nb notebook right from the command line:

  woxi run notebook.nb
  

• Woxi imports CERN ROOT files \ The Wolfram Language has no importer for the standard container format of particle physics, but Woxi decodes its 1-D and 2-D histograms, strings, and nested directories into an Association, and reads TTree branch data — flat leaves, leaf-count arrays, std::vectors, and TLorentzVectors — through element paths (see Import):

  woxi eval 'Import["experiment.root"]'
  woxi eval 'Import["experiment.root", {"ROOT", "events", "energy"}]'
  

Mathematica vs Woxi Studio¶

• Woxi Studio does not support out of order evaluation of cells \ When running a cell, it automatically also runs all cells before it. This is to avoid confusion about the state of the kernel and ensures consistent results when working with notebooks.

• Woxi Studio does not support % \ This is too brittle as it refers to the last calculation that was evaluated, which could be any notebook cell and therefore leads to confusion about the state of the kernel. If you want to reuse results, assign them to a variable.

• Mostly not implemented yet

  • Wolfram Knowledgebase \ This includes functions like:
    • WolframAlpha[]
    • Built-in Entity[] objects
    • Natural language input with ctrl =
    • Most functions listed on http://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/KnowledgeRepresentationAndAccess.html
  • Machine Learning and Neural Networks
  • Optimization
  • FEM
  • Chemistry
  • Audio Computation
  • Video Computation
  • Astronomy
  • Control Systems
  • Signal Processing
  • Tools for AIs

Missing features by Mathematica release¶

Woxi targets a subset of the Wolfram Language, so some of the several-hundred functions added in each Mathematica release are not (yet) implemented. The full list highlights the marquee feature areas of each version that Woxi does not support.

Conformance gaps¶

Where a function is implemented, its output should match wolframscript character for character. The known exceptions are catalogued separately — each one verified against the Wolfram Language, but not fixed yet.