Maxima
A Computer Algebra System
A Computer Algebra System
Besides describing mathematical problems, Maxima provides its own
programming language to write programs. Additionally, as it is written
in Lisp,
it also provides easy access to that programming language. In a Maxima
session the user can enter individual Lisp commands using the prefix
“:lisp”, as in the following example:
(%i1) :lisp (+ 2/7 (* 3 4 1/5))
94/35
The user can also start a Lisp session from Maxima with the
command to_lisp(). And that Lisp session can be ended,
returning to Maxima, with the Lisp
command (to-maxima). See more details in
the Lisp and Maxima section
of the reference manual.
Maxima can be compiled with SBCL, Clisp, CCL, GCL, CMUCL, ECL, Scieneer Common Lisp (SCL), Allegro Common Lisp (ACL) and ABCL.
Ports to other ANSI Common Lisps should be straightforward and are welcome; please post a message on the Maxima mailing list if you are interested in working on a port.
When Maxima is compiled, the Lisp implementation is selected by
giving to the configure script an argument of the
form --enable-foolisp, where "foolisp" is the
name of the Lisp implementation. ./configure --help shows
a list of the Lisp implementations accepted by configure
(among other options). Always specify the Lisp type; configure tries
to autodetect the Lisp type if it is not specified, but it has been
reported that autodetection can fail.
The compiled Maxima image can also be made executable (embedding an
autonomous copy of the Lisp program used), when Clisp, SBCL or CMUCL
are used. To build an executable image, the suffix -exec
should be appended to the option --enable-foolisp given
to the configure program.
There are various differences among different Lisp implementations,
regarding speed, memory usage, error handling, support for foreign
functions interface (FFI) and command line editing. Some
implementations use the GNU readline library, which provides the
ability to recall previously used commands and edit them. For the
implementations that do not have that ability, Maxima includes
the rmaxima front-end which provides advanced
line-editing facilities
via rlwrap.
Steel Bank Common Lisp (SBCL), is a fork of CMUCL which differs in some minor details, but most notably, it is simpler to rebuild SBCL than CMUCL. There are SBCL implementations for Linux, several BSD systems, Solaris, Mac OS X and MS Windows.
rmaxima is recommended for use with SBCL.
Clisp can be built
with readline support, so Maxima has advanced
command-line editing facilities when built with it.
Clisp is compiled to bytecodes, so Maxima running on Clisp is substantially slower than on Lisps compiled to machine instructions. On the other hand, Clisp contains code from CLN, a library for efficient computations with all kinds of numbers in arbitrary precision.
There are Clisp implementations for many platforms including MS Windows and Unix-like systems.
GCL versions
starting with 2.4.3 can be built with readline support,
so Maxima has advanced command-line editing facilities when built with
it. GCL produces a fast Maxima executable.
Only the ANSI-enabled version of GCL works with Maxima; thus, when
GCL is built, it must be configured with
the --enable-ansi flag, i.e., execute ./configure
--enable-ansi in the build directory before
executing make. Whether GCL is ANSI-enabled or not can be
determined by inspecting the banner which is printed when GCL is
executed; if ANSI-enabled, the banner should say ”ANSI”. Also, the
special variable *FEATURES* should include the
keyword :ANSI-CL.
There are GCL implementations for many platforms including MS Windows and Unix-like systems.
Clozure Common Lisp, or CCL for short, was formerly known as OpenMCL. It is available for Linux, MS Windows and Macintosh and Maxima can be compiled with it.
CMUCL is a fast option for Maxima on platforms where it is available. CMUCL versions 18e and 19a are known to work. There are CMUCL implementations only for Unix-like systems (not MS Windows).
rmaxima is recommended for use with CMUCL.
ECL is a small but complete implementation of Common Lisp. The Android port of Maxima is currently built with ECL.
Scieneer Common Lisp (SCL) is a fast option for Maxima for a range of Linux and Unix platforms. Allegro Common Lisp comes with many packages and interfaces, debugging and an interactive development environment. Maxima can be compiled with these two Lisp implementations, but only limited testing has been done since they are commercial non-free software.
ABCL is a full implementation of the Common Lisp language featuring both an interpreter and a compiler, running in the JVM.