?iga Lenar?i? wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Going through Maxima's code, I'm wondering what is the difference
> between defvar and defmvar. Also, what's the difference between defun
> and defmfun?
>
> Ziga
>
Not much.
I think that historically defmvar and defmfun were used by maclisp and
lispmachine lisps to simulate what eventually were standardized in
common lisp as defvar and defun. There are additional features for
backward compatibility and recordkeeping of what files defined which
functions, but these are disabled for common lisp (and probably
re-introduced by common lisp compilers).
You can use defmfun if you want, but it means you cannot read your
program into an ordinary lisp. It must have some of the Maxima system
loaded. (specifically the definition of defmfun in maxmac.lisp or
commac.lisp.