maxima-discuss

[Maxima-discuss] Problem loading package COMA

[Wilhelm H. <wil...@ht...>]

Hi,

I have problems loading the control engineering package COMA
(Maxima 5.35.1, Windows xp):

In the command-line Version of Maxima I can only load the package
by specifying the whole path:

  (%i1) 
load("C:\\Programme\\Maxima-5.35.1\\share\\maxima\\5.35.1\\share\\contrib\coma\\coma.mac");
              coma v.1.70, (Wilhelm Haager, 2014-09-07)

  (%o1) 
C:\Programme\Maxima-5.35.1\share\maxima\5.35.1\share\contrib\coma\coma.mac

Specifying just the package-name yields an error message:

  (%i2) load(coma);
  ;
  ; compilation unit aborted
  ;   caught 1 fatal ERROR condition

  loadfile: failed to load coma
   -- an error. To debug this try: debugmode(true);
  (%i3)

wxMaxima behaves especially weirdly: Loading the package by specifying
just the package-name works:

  (%i1) load(coma);
  "coma v.1.70, (Wilhelm Haager, 2014-09-07)"
  (%o1) "d:/w/maxima/coma.mac"

But loading it out of an existing wxm-File does not:

(%i1) load(coma);
;

loadfile: failed to load coma
 -- an error. To debug this try: debugmode(true);

Even a local copy of coma.mac cannot be loaded in the desired way;
nevertheless, a renamed copy of the package can be loaded very well.

Thus I suppose, the name "coma" must be registered anywhere in the
system in an unappropriate way,
as renaming the file solves the problem
(but it would be always better to treat the root cause instead
of the symptoms).

Thanks in advance
Wilhelm

Re: [Maxima-discuss] Problem loading package COMA

[Robert D. <rob...@gm...>]

On 2015-01-09, Wilhelm Haager <wil...@ht...> wrote:

> In the command-line Version of Maxima I can only load the package
> by specifying the whole path:

> Specifying just the package-name yields an error message:

Hmm. What does file_search(coma) yield? What do you get if you
trace(file_search, batchload) ? I think you should see that file_search
finds coma.mac and then batchload is called with that location.

I speculate that a problem might (or might not) be that there is a
folder named coma as well as a file named coma.mac. Just a random
guess; something to look at.

> But loading it out of an existing wxm-File does not:
>
> (%i1) load(coma);
> ;
>
> loadfile: failed to load coma

I don't understand what you mean by loading it out of an existing wxm file.

Sorry I can't be more helpful,

Robert Dodier

Re: [Maxima-discuss] Problem loading package COMA

[Robert D. <rob...@gm...>]

On Fri, Jan 9, 2015 at 2:45 PM, Wilhelm Haager
<wil...@ht...> wrote:

> thank you very much for your answer. Your remarks helped me to track
> down the cause of the problems: Indeed, I had a dirctory named "coma"
> in my working directory (which is also included in the Maxima search path).
>
> After renaming that directory everthng works fine now.

I've run into that same problem (with a different name).
That's a bug in the file search code -- the presence of a directory
shouldn't cause an error, the directory should be ignored.
I'll take a look at it, but maybe someone else can fix it too.

> BTW, I have made some minor improvements on the package coma.
> Could yo please provide the new appended version for the next Maxima
> release?

Sure, no problem. Thanks for your contribution.

best,

Robert Dodier

Re: [Maxima-discuss] Problem loading package COMA

[Robert D. <rob...@gm...>]

On 2015-01-09, Robert Dodier <rob...@gm...> wrote:

> I've run into that same problem (with a different name).
> That's a bug in the file search code -- the presence of a directory
> shouldn't cause an error, the directory should be ignored.
> I'll take a look at it, but maybe someone else can fix it too.

I've attempted to fix the bug as commit 37182aa6.

best,

Robert Dodier