On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 12:48 PM, Robert Dodier <robert.dodier at gmail.com>wrote:
> On 2013-02-16, Rupert Swarbrick <rswarbrick at gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> So, in my opinion, this isn't really a bug. The weird behaviour is that
> > SSOLVE returns a sort of partial result when it gets stuck and SOLVEX
> > returns an empty list. Weirdness like this is why I don't call solve()
> > in scripts and instead rely on eg. algsys() where at least I know what
> > I'll get if it fails.
>
> Hmm. I think SSOLVE should return an empty list if it can't find a
> solution.
>
ssolve sometimes returns an equivalent problem, e.g. solve(f(x)^2=1) =>
[f(x)=1,f(x)=-1]. This is something like a noun-form result, except that
there's no standard way to represent an OR in 'solve(...) (like
to_poly_solve's %union).
-s