Thanks Raul.

This saves me locating the source of math/tabula and friends, to update it.
It's several years now since I touched the code, and I've forgotten how to
do it -- and it's possibly changed.

But I ought to be grateful for the current j904 breaking the code, because
it has alerted me to latent bugs regarding the use of rational numbers by
math/cal and math/uu. For me this is the tip of a murky iceberg.

It's not so much that I want to retain a sensible looking constant for
rational-infinity, as the fact that infinities (or exploding large finite
number representations in general) can arise in so many ways, and there's
no guarantee they will equate with whatever I settle on as a "reference"
rational-infinity. In particular, math/cal's use of Newton's method with
rational numbers is particularly fraught, with an emerging host of spooky
reasons for non-convergence I don't have words to describe (some play on
the terms Moiré, resonance, Nyquist … might be needed). This is the
flagship feature of math/cal we're talking about.

Hitherto math/cal has played whack-a-mole with issues as they arose. I fear
that the move to new arithmetic routines will deliver a fresh load of moles
to whack. And just when my attention is diverted elsewhere.

Ian

On Wed, 25 Jan 2023 at 04:36, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote:

> I've noticed an odd quirk here.
>
>    1.2r3.4
> 0.352941
>    _r3.4
> |ill-formed number
>
> This issue is present in j903.
>
> I have opted to retain this quirk for j904, because it doesn't seem to
> be important and it makes the implementation a bit simpler.
>
> (Also, other than this quirk, _r1 and friends will work in the next
> update to j904.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> --
> Raul
>
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 10:38 PM Raul Miller <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> >
> > Right... Aside from adding libgmp support, a change from j903 is that
> > j903 had an extended precision infinity which was used in parsing
> > numeric constants, but j904 does not.
> >
> > And, when I was rewriting the bit that handles rational constants, I
> > overlooked some of the ways of representing rational infinity.
> >
> > I'm testing a fix for this problem right now. It should be ready soon.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > --
> > Raul
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 24, 2023 at 10:18 PM Henry Rich <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > Decision, decisions.  How /should/ you specify an extended infinity?
> I say
> > >
> > >     _x
> > > |ill-formed number
> > >
> > > There could be alternatives. _r(any finite) and (any non0)r0 are both
> > > reasonable.
> > >
> > > NOTE that the GMP library that we have moved to has no way to represent
> > > extended infinity.  Raul has chosen 1r0 as our internal representation
> > > of extended infinity, so infinity will always have rational precision,
> > > not extended integer.
> > >
> > > For display, we get it right:
> > >
> > >     1r0
> > > _
> > >
> > > It seems that _r(any) should be converted to infinity - and _x and __x
> > > too I think.  This is in Raul's area.
> > >
> > > If you have a dependency on the internal representation of infinity it
> > > will be on you to update it.
> > >
> > > Henry Rich
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 1/24/2023 9:00 PM, Ian Clark wrote:
> > > > j903 accepts -- but j904 rejects -- this way of defining rational
> infinity:
> > > >
> > > > _r1
> > > >
> > > > |ill-formed number
> > > >
> > > > | _r1
> > > >
> > > > | ^
> > > >
> > > > JVERSION
> > > >
> > > > Engine: j904/j64arm/darwin
> > > >
> > > > Beta-k: commercial/2023-01-24T04:42:28
> > > >
> > > > Library: 9.04.10
> > > >
> > > > Qt IDE: 2.0.3/6.2.4(6.2.4)
> > > >
> > > > Platform: Darwin 64
> > > >
> > > > Installer: J904 install
> > > >
> > > > InstallPath: /applications/j904
> > > >
> > > > Contact: www.jsoftware.com
> > > >
> > > > A workaround is to use 1r0 instead:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > 1r0
> > > >
> > > > _
> > > >
> > > > datatype 1r0
> > > >
> > > > rational
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Not a lot of j-ers willl have a use for rational [minus] infinity,
> but IMO
> > > > a beginner might find it more intuitive to define it as _r1 rather
> than 1r0
> > > > . Maybe it's no big deal in itself, but it breaks 3 addons, viz:
> math/cal,
> > > > math/uu -- and in consequence math/tabula:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >     load'math/uu' NB. Launch UU only
> > > > |ill-formed number in script, executing monad 0!: 0
> > > > |any word beginning with a digit or _ must be a valid number
> > > > |   BADRAT=: __r1
> > > > |            ^
> > > > |[-33] /applications/j904/addons/math/uu/uu.ijs
> > > >
> > > >     load'math/cal'
> > > > |ill-formed number in script, executing monad 0!: 0
> > > > |any word beginning with a digit or _ must be a valid number
> > > > |   BAD_EXE_VALUE=: __r1
> > > > |                   ^
> > > > |[-92] /applications/j904/addons/math/cal/cal.ijs
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > So I'd call it a bug.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > There's been plenty of time to discover this. Sorry it's taken me so
> long.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Ian Clark
> > > >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > For information about J forums see
> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
> > >
> > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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