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Searches for Maxima names which have name appearing anywhere
within them; name must be a string or symbol. Thus, apropos
(exp) returns a list of all the flags and functions which have
exp as part of their names, such as expand, exp,
and exponentialize. So, if you can only remember part of the name
of a Maxima command or variable, you can use this command to find the
rest of the name. Similarly, you can type apropos (tr_) to find
a list of many of the switches relating to the translator, most of which
begin with tr_.
apropos("") returns a list with all Maxima names.
apropos returns the empty list [], if no name is found.
Example:
Show all Maxima symbols which have gamma in the name:
(%i1) apropos("gamma");
(%o1) [%gamma, Gamma, gamma_expand, gammalim, makegamma,
prefer_gamma_incomplete, gamma, gamma-incomplete, gamma_incomplete,
gamma_incomplete_generalized, gamma_incomplete_generalized_regularized,
gamma_incomplete_lower, gamma_incomplete_regularized, log_gamma]
The same example, using the symbol gamma, rather than the string:
(%i2) apropos(gamma); (%o2) [%gamma, Gamma, gamma_expand, gammalim, makegamma, prefer_gamma_incomplete, gamma, gamma-incomplete, gamma_incomplete, gamma_incomplete_generalized, gamma_incomplete_generalized_regularized, gamma_incomplete_lower, gamma_incomplete_regularized, log_gamma]
The number of symbols in the current Maxima session. This will vary.
(%i3) length(apropos(""));
(%o3) 2338
Evaluates Maxima expressions in filename and displays the results.
demo pauses after evaluating each expression and continues after the
user enters a carriage return. (If running in Xmaxima, demo may need
to see a semicolon ; followed by a carriage return.)
demo searches the list of directories file_search_demo to find
filename. If the file has the suffix dem, the suffix may be
omitted. See also file_search.
demo evaluates its argument.
demo returns the name of the demonstration file.
Example:
(%i1) demo ("disol");
batching /home/wfs/maxima/share/simplification/disol.dem
At the _ prompt, type ';' followed by enter to get next demo
(%i2) load("disol")
_
(%i3) exp1 : a (e (g + f) + b (d + c))
(%o3) a (e (g + f) + b (d + c))
_
(%i4) disolate(exp1, a, b, e)
(%t4) d + c
(%t5) g + f
(%o5) a (%t5 e + %t4 b)
_
describe(string) is equivalent to
describe(string, exact).
describe(string, exact) finds an item with title equal
(case-insensitive) to string, if there is any such item.
describe(string, inexact) finds all documented items which contain
string in their titles. If there is more than one such item, Maxima asks
the user to select an item or items to display.
At the interactive prompt, ? foo (with a space between ? and
foo) is equivalent to describe("foo", exact), and ?? foo
is equivalent to describe("foo", inexact).
describe("", inexact) yields a list of all topics documented in the
on-line manual.
describe quotes its argument. describe returns true if
some documentation is found, otherwise false.
To display the topics using a browser see output_format_for_help. Also see browser and url_base to configure how to display the HTML files.
See also Documentation.
Example:
(%i1) ?? integ
0: Functions and Variables for Elliptic Integrals
1: Functions and Variables for Integration
2: Introduction to Elliptic Functions and Integrals
3: Introduction to Integration
4: askinteger (Functions and Variables for Simplification)
5: integerp (Functions and Variables for Miscellaneous Options)
6: integer_partitions (Functions and Variables for Sets)
7: integrate (Functions and Variables for Integration)
8: integrate_use_rootsof (Functions and Variables for
Integration)
9: integration_constant_counter (Functions and Variables for
Integration)
10: nonnegintegerp (Functions and Variables for linearalgebra)
Enter space-separated numbers, `all' or `none': 7 8
-- Function: integrate (<expr>, <x>)
-- Function: integrate (<expr>, <x>, <a>, <b>)
Attempts to symbolically compute the integral of <expr> with
respect to <x>. `integrate (<expr>, <x>)' is an indefinite
integral, while `integrate (<expr>, <x>, <a>, <b>)' is a
definite integral, [...]
-- Option variable: integrate_use_rootsof
Default value: `false'
When `integrate_use_rootsof' is `true' and the denominator of
a rational function cannot be factored, `integrate' returns
the integral in a form which is a sum over the roots (not yet
known) of the denominator.
[...]
In this example, items 7 and 8 were selected (output is shortened as indicated
by [...]). All or none of the items could have been selected by entering
all or none, which can be abbreviated a or n,
respectively.
Default value: text
output_format_for_help controls how describe displays
help.
output_format_for_help can be set to one of the following
values:
textHelp is displayed as plain text sent to a terminal. This is the default.
htmlHelp is displayed using a browser to display the HTML version of the manual.
frontendHelp is displayed using the frontend’s help system. If no frontend is running then an error is signaled. For example, wxMaxima and xmaxima are some frontends for maxima.
Any other value is a error.
See also browser, and url_base.
This specifies the command to use to open an HTML file. This is a
format string of the form <cmd> ~A where ~A is replaced
by the URL of the HTML file and <cmd> is some program that
takes an arg and opens up a browser to the given URL.
On windows, the default setting is "start ~A",
which uses the default browser to display the html file. You may replace
it with e.g. start firefox ~A, start chrome ~A or start iexplore ~A
if you want to use Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer
instead of the default browser.
On other OSes, the user’s default browser should be used
automatically (using xdg-open on Linux/Unix and open on MacOS).
You can also set the browser variable to use
a non default browser, e.g.
browser:"firefox '~A'"; or browser:"chromium '~A'";
See also output_format_for_help, and url_base.
When displaying help using a browser, url_base defines the URL
to use. It defaults to a file:// path pointing to the
directory containing the html files for documentation. However, you
could use http://localhost:8080/ or some other URL that has the HTML
help files. But this requires those URLs to have exactly the same
HTML files in the info directory because a table is needed to
translate a topic to the appropriate location in an html file.
See also output_format_for_help and browser.
example (topic) displays some examples of topic, which is a
symbol or a string. To get examples for operators like if, do,
or lambda the argument must be a string, e.g. example ("do").
example is not case sensitive. Most topics are function names.
example () returns the list of all recognized topics.
The name of the file containing the examples is given by the global option
variable manual_demo, which defaults to "manual.demo".
example quotes its argument. example returns done unless
no examples are found or there is no argument, in which case example
returns the list of all recognized topics.
Examples:
(%i1) example(append); (%i2) append([y+x,0,-3.2],[2.5e+20,x]) (%o2) [y + x, 0, - 3.2, 2.5e+20, x] (%o2) done
(%i3) example("lambda");
(%i4) lambda([x,y,z],x^2+y^2+z^2)
2 2 2
(%o4) lambda([x, y, z], x + y + z )
(%i5) %(1,2,a)
2
(%o5) a + 5
(%i6) 1+2+a
(%o6) a + 3
(%o6) done
Default value: "manual.demo"
manual_demo specifies the name of the file containing the examples for
the function example. See example.
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