Maxima/ECL combination not printing a leading zero

  On 8/6/2010 8:54 AM, Robert Dodier wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 9:47 AM, Richard Fateman<fateman at cs.berkeley.edu>  wrote:
>
>> This standard is adhered to by apparently all the correctly
>> compliant common lisps.
>>
>> Which apparently does not include ECL/Sparc.
>> So it is a bug in ECL/Sparc.  So you can go fix it since it is open source.
> Oh, cut it out. Did you look at the Maxima code and the relevant
> bit of the CFLHS ? I didn't think so.
>
You mean the CLHS. no I did not.  But if you want to have a discussion 
with language lawyers about Lisp,
there is another place to do so, comp.lang.lisp.

But here is what I found, when d, the number of decimal places to the right
of the point is not specified..

If the parameter /d/ is omitted, then there is no constraint on the 
number of digits to appear after the decimal point. A value is chosen 
for /d/ in such a way that as many digits as possible may be printed 
subject to the width constraint imposed by the parameter /w/ and the 
constraint that no trailing zero digits may appear in the fraction, 
except that if the fraction to be printed is zero, then a single zero 
digit should appear after the decimal point if permitted by the width 
constraint.

So it appears that "as many digits as possible" here means that with 
width= 17 here and no trailing zero to drop off we can look at the other 
specification, namely ..

Leading zeros are not permitted, except that a single zero digit is 
output before the decimal point if the printed value is less than one, 
and this single zero digit is not output at all if /w/=/d/+1.

Since w=d+1, this leads to no  "0.".   Now you could extend this 
discussion to binary-to-decimal conversion, and
the rounding on Intel x86 extended registers vs Sparc etc,  as I 
mentioned.  But this may or may not be relevant.


My suggestion that "Dr. David Kirby" dump his Sparc machine(s) is based 
on simply this:  he is spending a substantial amount of his time, and 
trying to engage a substantial amount of other peoples' time, trying to 
get this machine to build and run Sage, including Maxima and ECL.

While it is occasionally useful in finding "new bugs" to bring up a 
software system
on new hardware, it is not all that useful to have people who are not 
experts on the system to
fiddle with it, because "new bugs" may not be bugs at all.


This Sparc/Sage/Maxima/Lisp/ECL axis is one in which Kirby is either 
unwilling or unable to examine bugs himself. Under these circumstances, 
his abandoning Sparc would enable him and others to get on with more 
productive activities.




> Robert Dodier
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