#2720 some functions cannot be found by `describe'

[Sergey Litvinov]

Some functions are not indexed by describe, for example

(%i6) describe(absimp);
  No exact match found for topic `absimp'.
  Try `?? absimp' (inexact match) instead.

(%i7) describe(faceexp);
  No exact match found for topic `faceexp'.
  Try `?? faceexp' (inexact match) instead.

A possible reason is that in doc/info/include-maxima.texi there are
two @chapters with similar names:

606:@chapter Simplification
868:@chapter simplification

[Rupert Swarbrick]

Hi,

The reason that describe(absimp) doesn't work is that packages are indexed with names like "Package foo", rather than just "foo" and describe uses exact matching. So

(%i14) describe("Package absimp");

75.2 Package absimp
===================
...

works fine. Obviously, that's not particularly useful, but describe("absimp", inexact); does work.

You probably know about the shortcut already, but you can get the first describe behaviour with

(%i16) ? Package absimp

and the second behaviour with two question marks:

(%i17) ?? absimp

For your other example, if you delete the extra 'e', you get

(%i18) ?? facexp

 0: Package facexp
 1: facexpand  (Functions and Variables for Polynomials)
Enter space-separated numbers, `all' or `none': 

which seems to be working as designed.

So I think this isn't really a bug. I agree that nodes describing packages have slightly unusual names, which can make using '?' for them difficult. But we have to do that: if there's a function called FOO and it lives in a package called FOO, we need to do something to make sure the two documentation pages have different names.

As such, I'm closing this report with wontfix. However, if I've massively misunderstood what you were trying to do, or this answer sounds like it's wrong, please feel free to re-open the bug and explain what I've messed up. :-)

[Sergey Litvinov]

Hi Rupert,

However, if I've massively misunderstood

You reading is right. Thank you for clarifying this.

I'm closing this report with wontfix.

I agree.