[Maxima-discuss] matching non-commutative "." patterns

[Henry B. <hb...@pi...>]

I'd like to match patterns for terms like

a*b*B.C.X.Y.Z

as:

a*b - product of constants and scalars
B.C - product of non-"X" nonscalars
X - the variable we're looking for
Y.Z - product of non-"X" nonscalars

Need less to say, due to noncommutativity of ".", it gets more complicated to deal with multiple instances of non-"X" nonscalars, scalars, etc.

This is for solving quaternion algebraic equations.

Thanks for any help.