Subject: how to pass the name of a variable as argument?
From: Robert Dodier
Date: Thu, 1 May 2008 23:47:52 -0600
On 5/1/08, Oliver Kullmann <O.Kullmann at swansea.ac.uk> wrote:
> Now the problem is that apparently it is
> not possible to just stop Maxima in a computation
> and to inspect the values of local variables of
> a function.
You might try invoking the Lisp debugger. Launch Maxima with
the -g command line option. Then you can interrupt a computation
with control-C, which opens the Lisp debugger.
Within the Lisp debugger, you can inspect variables, although
they appear as Lisp variables, with $ prefixed on the name.
Just entering $foo to inspect the Maxima variable foo displays
it as a Lisp expression. (displa $foo) (note the irregular spelling)
displays foo as a Maxima expression.
Whether or not you can continue the computation seems to
depend on the Lisp variety. In the CMUCL debugger you can
enter "go" to continue.
There might be a way to start the Maxima debugger from
within the Lisp debugger, but I don't know how to do that.
Hope this helps
Robert Dodier