[Maxima-discuss] The decimal float package

[Barton W. <wi...@un...>]

Reminder:  After running the share testsuite, don't expect floating point calculations to work.  The culprit is the decimal float package.  There is a source code comment in testsuite.lisp saying that this test needs to be the last.

This morning, I consumed a third cup of coffee puzzling over why Maxima was giving an error for bfloat(%i/sqrt(3)).

Maybe somebody can figure out a way to allow Maxima to "unload" this package and restore Maxima to as it was before loading.

Don't get me wrong: the decimal float package is worthy, but using it could confuse users (like me).

Example

%i1) bfloat(%i/sqrt(3));

Maxima encountered a Lisp error:

 The value NIL is not of the expected type NUMBER.