I am okay about not hacking on integrate anymore except for the two rules you mention. So I have to go back to the
drawing board now, which is okay. That approach is probably easier too. Thanks for the feedback.
Rich
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Fateman" <fateman at cs.berkeley.edu>
To: "'Richard Hennessy'" <rvh2007 at comcast.net>
Cc: "'Maxima List'" <maxima at math.utexas.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2008 1:59 PM
Subject: RE: [Maxima] tellsimp problem
declaring x as symbolp is usually a mistake.
when you are matching
a*x+b, you want to match a as the coefficient of x, a given parameter to the
match.
If you declare x as symbolp, then the matching program will, I think, refuse
to match
x+b with a=1, .
beyond that, I don't know if the integration of unit_step()*f(x) is being
done right, but I
suggest that you stop hacking on 'integrate except for two rules:
matchdeclare([any,any2,any3,any4,any5],true);
tellsimp(integrate(any*unit_step(any2),any3,any4,any5),
unit_step_prod_integrate(any,any2,any3,any4,any5));
tellsimp(integrate(unit_step(any2),any3,any4,any5),
unit_step_prod_integrate(1,any2,any3,any4,any5));
then write unit_step_prod_integrate...
RJF