Re: [Maxima-discuss] :lisp (describe '$tex)

[Eduardo O. <edu...@gm...>]

On Sun, 16 Jul 2023 at 11:53, Raymond Toy <toy...@gm...> wrote:

> On 7/15/23 9:09 PM, Eduardo Ochs wrote:
>
> On Sat, 15 Jul 2023 at 21:36, Robert Dodier <rob...@gm...>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Eduardo,
>>
>> For the record, Maxima functions defined by DEFMSPEC are so-called
>> argument quoting functions; these functions work either with
>> unevaluated symbols (e.g. kill), or manage evaluation by explicit
>> calls to MEVAL (e.g. makelist) -- this latter approach leads to more
>> or less unpredictable evaluation behavior. I think the best we can do
>> is to document any such existing functions, and be very circumspect
>> about introducing new ones.
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>>
>> Robert
>>
>
>  Hi Jeronimo and Robert,
>
> I grepped the sources and (I think that I) found 153 Maxima functions
> that are defined using defmspec... it would be good to have a nice way
> to jump to their sources, but I confess that I would be happy with a
> non-nice way, too. I just found that if I run this,
>
>   to_lisp()$
>     (describe '$changevar)
>     (describe '$tex)
>     (symbol-plist '$tex)
>     (get '$tex 'mfexpr*)
>     (to-maxima)
>
> the output of the "(get '$tex 'mfexpr*)" is:
>
>   #<FUNCTION (LAMBDA (L) :IN "/home/edrx/bigsrc/maxima/src/mactex.lisp")
> {52FB567B}>
>
> how do I extract the "/home/edrx/bigsrc/maxima/src/mactex.lisp" from
> that?
>
> What lisp are you using?
>
> Maybe you can do (describe (get '$tex 'mfexpr*) to get a description that
> includes the path? Or maybe use inspect instead of describe?
>
> I’m using maxima with cmucl. It doesn’t have the “:IN” part, but describe
> does give the path where it was compiled from.
>

Hi Raymond! Hey, thanks!
SBCL. I got this a few minutes before your answer:

  to_lisp()$
    (defun describe-mfexpr (symbol)
      (sb-impl::describe-function-source
        (get symbol 'mfexpr*) nil))
    (describe-mfexpr '$tex)
    (to-maxima)

But your suggestions are much better:

  (describe (get '$tex 'mfexpr*))
  (inspect  (get '$tex 'mfexpr*))

  (defun describe-mfexpr (symbol) (describe (get symbol 'mfexpr*)))
  (describe-mfexpr '$tex)

Cheers! =)
  Eduardo