describe & newline problems, was: proposed release schedule for maxima 5.9.3
Subject: describe & newline problems, was: proposed release schedule for maxima 5.9.3
From: Robert Dodier
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:16:02 -0700
On 12/12/05, van.Nek@gmx.net wrote:
> I am surprised to read that sprint should only have a temporary role.
> I found it by reading the 5.9.0 resp. 5.9.1 documentation.
> I use it frequently in my classes. For series of fibs, random numbers, whatever.
on looking at the cvs logs, it looks like sprint was commented
out of plot.lisp (i don't know why yet).
then, later, i was revising the documentation and found that
sprint was an undefined function, so i cut out the description of it.
i'll look at the log again and if it seems like it is not harmful to
restore sprint, then i will do so.
> At first sight it seems to be impossible to write the old 'sprint' including line feed as a
> function. The line feed must be provided by the system. I cannot tell a function that it
> should behave different at a first function call after pressing 'enter'. Or is there a global
> variable which is set by each time pressing 'enter'?
xmaxima is attempting to echo all the input and output characters,
but, it appears, it is not echoing the carriage return which causes
for n from 0 thru 10 do sprint(fib(n))$ (for example) to be processed.
there is the concept of "fresh line" in lisp. i don't know if calling
FRESH-LINE at the beginning of a function always has the result
which is desired here. lisp can track newlines created by
FORMAT and other output functions, but i do not know if lisp
also tracks newlines created by the user pressing the "enter" key.
best,
robert dodier