[Reduce-algebra-developers] Issue with num_min

[Arthur N. <ac...@ca...>]

Until this evening if you passed non-numeric values such as
(!:rd!: . 1.0e-36) to expt in CSL it crashed out in an embarassing way, 
but I have now made that function check its args a bit better. I hit this 
when trying to do a numerical minimization, and sometimes that seems to 
pass a Reduce wrapped up float not a number. Well also the value 
10^1.0e-36 looks a pretty odd thing to be calculating! I have not (yet) 
looked inside the code to understand what is going on - this is posted so 
that others can comment too....


1: on backtrace;

2: num_min(cos x^2 + cos y^2, {x=1, y=2}, accuracy=1.0e-36, 
iterations=100);
+++ Error: expt 10 (!:rd!: . 1.0e-36)
Inside: steepdeceval1
Arg1: (plus (expt (cos x) 2) (expt (cos y) 2))
Arg2: (x y)
Arg3: (1 2)
Arg4: num_min
Inside: rdmineval
Arg1: ((plus (expt (cos x) 2) (expt (cos y) 2)) (list (equal x 1) (equal y 
2)) (
equal accuracy (!:dn!: 10 . -37)) (equal iterations 100))
Inside: lispapply
...

Arthur