"Daniel M. Israel" <dmi1 at lanl.gov> writes:
> Is there a simple way to get maxima to simplify
>
> a+b*x+c*x
>
> to
>
> a+(b+c)*x
>
> (In real life, a,b,c, and x may all be more complex expressions.)
As well as the other replies, there's also a slight overkill approach
that might work and is definitely simple to do:
(%i4) a + b*x + c*x;
(%o4) c x + b x + a
(%i5) rat (%, x);
(%o5)/R/ (c + b) x + a
The resulting expression is stored in CRE form, which you might not
want, but you can convert back to a normal expression without breaking
the factorisation:
(%i6) ratdisrep (%);
(%o6) (c + b) x + a
(%i7)
Obviously, this won't work if b,c aren't free of x.
Rupert
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