how to use "maxima --batch" *reliably* ??



>  Oliver, you might take a look at the list of related projects,
>  http://maxima.sourceforge.net/relatedprojects.shtml
>  Various kinds of systems which use Maxima as a computational
>  engine have been implemented.

In particular, you may want to look at Sage which provides a Python
interface to Maxima (amongst other things).  If a situation arises
where Maxima needs additional input, an exception is raised.  If that
exception is not handled, then the Python script will exit with a
status of 1.  Here is an example of how to use the interface in the
most basic/explicit way:

sage: maxima.eval('2+2')
'4'
sage: maxima.eval('integrate((1+v^2/c^2)^3/(1-v^2/c^2)^(3/2),v)')
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
ValueError: Computation failed since Maxima requested additional
constraints (use assume):
Is  c  zero or nonzero?

It is also used behind the scenes  for things like the following:
sage: integrate(x^2,x)
x^3/3

--Mike