clean slate




On Thu, 7 May 2009, Edwin Woollett wrote:

< On Thu, 7 May 2009, Leo Butler wrote
< (  in thread Re: [Maxima] Allroot function problem ) :
< ------------------------------------------------------
< Thanks, I should have written `reset(); kill(all);' to achieve an
< approximately clean slate.
< Leo
< -------------------------------------------------
< The use of reset( )$ will change the values
< of maxima_userdir, maxima_tempdir, and
< file_search_maxima to the default values, overriding
< values set in your maxima-init.mac startup file.

Yes, by a clean slate I mean plain vanilla maxima with all of its
default values. In order to rule out bugs between one's ears, one
ought to run software as god--or his representatives on earth, the
developers--intended it be run.

(I recently spent a quite a bit of time installing a lib
in a non-standard location. I learned the hard way that the obvious
command-line option does not work as described, one must use shell
variables. If I had installed the lib in its standard location, I
would have not encountered any difficulties (my sysadmin confirmed
this).)

< 
< 
< My current solution to a " clean slate " is to define a function
< mstate( ) which prints out functions, values, arrays, facts(),
< myoptions, labels, and the value of fpprintprec,
< and a function mkill( ) (see below) which produces
< a "clean slate" except for these two functions.

kill allows you to do this directly without a second init file:

mkill() := ( kill(allbut(mstate,mkill)), etc. )$

I like your mstate command.
 
Leo

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