I agree that %xxx does *not *generally mean that %xxx is a constant. There
is a flag on the symbol for that.
As for wxMaxima, it has its own strange conventions. %xxx, where xxx is
the name of a Greek letter, displays as the Greek letter. But so does xxx,
except that gamma and psi display as capitals (?, ?), and lambda as the
word written out in Latin letters. Xxx and %Xxx always display as capitals.
You can't distinguish between xxx and %xxx visually. You can't enter the
Greek characters directly in the input line (system goes into an infinite
loop of errors).
So in wxMaxima, if you really want a symbol that looks like ? but doesn't
denote 3.14..., you can simply write pi instead of %pi. Careful, though,
because you won't be able to distinguish between the two symbols on output.
-s
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Kris Katterjohn <katterjohn at gmail.com>wrote:
> On 07/30/2013 11:22 AM, Robert Dodier wrote:
> > On 2013-07-30, Jaime Villate <villate at fe.up.pt> wrote:
> >
> >> Well, wxmaxima, sage and any other projects that use Maxima should
> >> follow the rules that Maxima developers has been using long before those
> >> projects appeared.
> >
> > There aren't any such rules, so how could they follow them?
> >
> > There is nothing in the code to force names beginning with % to be
> > constants; there is no requirement that constants begin with %; there
> > is no documentation to suggest % be used only for constants.
> > (And before anybody suggests doing any of that, let me mention that
> > I'm against it.) Some existing packages, written by long-standing
> > Maxima developers, use % names for things other than constants.
>
> Plus there are the option variables %iargs, %piargs, etc. While I
> assume that they are named for the constants %i, %pi, etc., they are
> still variables (defined in src/) whose names begin with %.
>
> Cheers,
> Kris Katterjohn
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