Ralf, On Wednesday, February 15, 2006 5:20 AM you wrote: > > Maybe I should have been a bit more precise. I actually > already knew what )abbrev is for. I just forgot the syntax.
No problem. > > As you see the first message tells me: > > Issue )abbrev? for more information. > > And if I do that I get a not so helpful message. That was the > bug I was referring to. I agree. I think is would be good to record such deficiencies as issue reports in the IssueTracker on the Axiom wiki. > > Anyway, is there somebody who thinks that the abbreviation is > vital to Axiom? (Well it is, because the generated NRLIB will > be created under that name.) Yes I do think they are essential to the way Axiom works at the present time. See more below. > However, I somehow think that is a constraint of old where > filenames could not be arbitrary long. Further, one then has > 2 identifiers in Axiom that refer to the same thing. I agree that the limitation on the length of the abbreviation itself was constrained by the old file names. But there are many cases where standard short name is quite convenient - especially for use by expert users in the Axiom interpreter. For example I often write: 'POLY INT' instead of 'Polynomial Integer' (and I am sure I could think of more extreme cases where the abbreviations are useful). > > I believe such abbreviations could be achieved on a per > user basis. Simply put appropriate macro definitions in > your .axiom.input file. Although this might be convenient for local and personal use, I worry that it might confuse or slow communications between more experienced users. For example if you defined the macros P ==> Polynomial I ==> Integer insist on writing 'P I' I would probably be confused until you explained your conventions. > Aldor does not understand ")abbrev" anyway. Well, I think the situation of using Aldor in Axiom is a little different than using Aldor stand alone. When a domain is compiled using Aldor inside Axiom the domain will still have an abbreviation. You can see this by issuing the ')show' command for the new domain. For example: http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/SandBoxCategoryOfGraphs2 In this case the abbreviation 'FINITEG' was assigned internally, probably by the Axiom/Aldor interface. Besides being a shortcut, one reason that Axiom needs abbreviations is in order to construct the internal (lisp) mangled name of the functions exported by the domain. See for example the lisp code in the following example: http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/SandBoxNNI I think this name mangling is essential to the way Axiom performs function selection and calling. Regards, Bill Page. _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
