what do these mean?



Is this one of those situations where '0,1' means 'true, false' instead
of the integers?

Perhaps I still don't quite get it.

I know about (setq A) in lisp.

But, I thought that the function produced in (%o4) below was a real
valued function.

Otherwise, how does one multiply by the real numbers in the
expressions?

So, it seems that the natural thing is that after entering the (%i4)
operation, one should be able to do f(2), f(%pi), etc.

But, here is what happens.

(%i1) load(interpol);
(%o1)      /usr/local/share/maxima/5.12.0/share/numeric/interpol.mac
(%i2) f(x):= linearinterpol([[2,1], [3,2], [4,3]]);
(%o2)          f(x) := linearinterpol([[2, 1], [3, 2], [4, 3]])
(%i3) f(2);
(%o3)     (x - 1) charfun2(x, minf, 3) + (x - 1) charfun2(x, 3, inf)
(%i4) f(4);
(%o4)     (x - 1) charfun2(x, minf, 3) + (x - 1) charfun2(x, 3, inf)


So, one has to do an extra evaluation like

%i5) linearinterpol([[2,1], [3,2], [4,3]]);
(%o5)     (x - 1) charfun2(x, minf, 3) + (x - 1) charfun2(x, 3, inf)
(%i6) f(x):= ''%;
(%o6) f(x) := (x - 1) charfun2(x, minf, 3) + (x - 1) charfun2(x, 3,
inf)
(%i7) f(2);
(%o7)                                  1
(%i8) f(3)
;
(%o8)                                  2
(%i9) f(2.4);
(%o9)                                 1.4

Why is this necessary?

TIA,
  -sen

On Tue, 12 Jun 2007, Robert Dodier wrote:

> On 6/11/07, sen1 at math.msu.edu <sen1 at math.msu.edu> wrote:
>
>> (%o4) f(x) := (0.3 x - 0.02) charfun2(x, minf, 0.2)
>>   + (1.9 x - .8999999999999999) charfun2(x, 0.9, inf)
>>   + (1.7 x - .7199999999999995) charfun2(x, 0.8, 0.9)
>>   + (1.5 x - .5600000000000003) charfun2(x, .7000000000000001, 0.8)
>>   + (1.3 x - .4200000000000002) charfun2(x, .6000000000000001,
>> .7000000000000001) + (1.1 x - 0.3) charfun2(x, 0.5, .6000000000000001)
>>   + (.8999999999999998 x - .1999999999999999) charfun2(x, 0.4, 0.5)
>>   + (.7000000000000002 x - .1200000000000001) charfun2(x, 0.3, 0.4)
>>   + (0.5 x - 0.06) charfun2(x, 0.2, 0.3)
>> (%i5) f(2);
>> (%o5)                                 2.9
>> (%i6) plot2d('(f(x)),[x,0,1]);
>> 
>> Why does one need the apostrophe and the parentheses in the expression
>> in (%i6), and what does it mean?
>
> In Maxima 5.11 and earlier, a Boolean expression could only
> evaluate to true or false, otherwise it would trigger an error.
> e.g. when x is not yet assigned a value, if x > 0 then foo else bar
> triggered an error.
>
> The quote mark around f(x) is probably intended to prevent that error.
> It doesn't appear to be needed in Maxima 5.12.0.
>> From what I can tell, plot2d(f(x), ...) works OK.
> (So does plot2d(f, ...), which also works in some, maybe all,
> pre-5.12 versions.)
>
> I guess the documentation can be updated to cut out the quote mark.
>
> HTH
> Robert
>

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