@kirkus yea, that works well. I didn't realize that trick.

Is there a logical reason why some functions such as Select, GatherBy, SplitBy use functions as a "test" whereas some other functions such as Count, Position uses patterns as the "test"?

Just two things I've been wondering about.

guys i have been receiving some suggested edit for review that barely change anything at all ( like adding a ? in the title). since i passed the 2000 mark not long ago i would like to hear from you what is the rule to follow in this case. i have rejected 2 of them because they barely improved the post an they came from a new user who maybe want some easy points. was i wrong ?

@Alucard Sounds ok. OTOH, because of this, I sometimes feel guilty fixing a one-letter typo in my own posts, which do not undergo review. E.g. "It result in..." --> "It results in..." But it might be worth having posts with good grammar.

@anhnha Range[-3, 3, 1/2] would get rid of the dots in all the numbers, if that's what you want.

A little late, but whatever. A Christmas Tree phase portrait:

@WeavingBird1917 I suppose it's nice to have both Cases and the function-test equivalent Select. And there's PatternTest and MatchQ to help convert one to the other. A pattern approach or a function approach might express more naturally the intent of a code in a given setting. Select[numbers, f[#] > 1.23 &] and Cases[Normal@Plot[Tan[x], {x, -2 Pi, 2 Pi}], _Line, Infinity] for instance.

@WeavingBird1917 Consider Options@Position and Options@Count

@Alucard Just saw the question. That "?" is arguably wrong (m_goldberg tends to remove them). It's more a question of style than a strict grammar rule, imo. But I would've rejected the edit, too.

Michael, thank you for your insight. I also noticed that based on those functions, the recursive ones seem to use a pattern approach. Also, cool Christmas tree!