On 3/5/09, Sheldon Newhouse <sen1 at math.msu.edu> wrote:
> Is there a way (other than simply searching all of the source files) to
> find the source files which contain given routines in maxima?
Some Lisp implementations display the name of the file in which a
function was defined via DESCRIBE.
e.g. :lisp (describe '$integrate)
However that only works for Maxima functions which are Lisp functions,
and even then the implementation may be spread around.
(Some Maxima functions are implemented mostly or entirely by
simplification, which is attached to the property list instead of the
symbol itself ....)
> I think it would be very useful to have a source reference for maxima.
> In the manual pages (or the output of '?') it would be nice to know what
> source file actually contains the routine.
I guess I'm opposed to that. Only a tiny fraction of users will ever look
at the source code (aside from the problem of determining what to
say about a function which has parts of its implementation in
different files). Even for developers, I';m not convinced it's worth the effort.
best
Robert Dodier