Hi, Robin,

On Sep 4, 2011, at 16:10 , robin hankin wrote:

> Hello Justin
> 
> thanks for this.
> 
> (I'm a linux user but currently getting to know macosx).

If you use linux, you aren't that far from (command-line) Mac OS X.  It's 
basically a BSD unix at that level.

> $SAGE_ROOT was null, but I can run it from the commandline by changing
> to Applications/Sage-4.7.1-OSX-64bit-10.6.app/Contents/Resources/sage/
> and running ./sage.

As I said, you had to replace "$SAGE_ROOT" with a real path.  But you've gotten 
past this.

> And the integral() command seems to work but I have other problems:
> 
> 
> wt118:/Applications/Sage-4.7.1-OSX-64bit-10.6.app/Contents/Resources/sage%
> ./sage
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> | Sage Version 4.7.1, Release Date: 2011-08-11                       |
> | Type notebook() for the GUI, and license() for information.        |
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> sage: 2+2
> 4
> sage: integral(x^2,x)
> 1/3*x^3
> sage: quit()

'quit' is a command, not a procedure call; in both Python and iPython, you call 
"quit()", but apparently, in Sage, not so much :-}.  Note that Sage is 
essentially Python, with a modified iPython front end, and a bit of syntactic 
sugaring with a preparser.  We throw a few things like this in just to keep the 
hapless user on his toes.  Or hers.

> I'm beginning to think I should reinstall from scratch (or indeed
> compile my own).

No need.  The precompiled version should work just fine.  You only have to 
survive the learning curve :-}

Keep asking questions and reading documentation.  

Apropos of documentation, there is a lot available

  <http://www.sagemath.org/help.html#SageStandardDoc>

but what's there can always use improvement.  Feel free to browse and either 
ask questions or submit bug reports (cf. 
<http://www.sagemath.org/development.html>).  Also, there is some built-in 
documentation in Sage.  To get an idea, type (at the prompt) the beginning of a 
procedure name (e.g., there is one that creates a number field):

  sage: Number[TAB]

should produce a list of four known Sage identifiers.  Typing

  sage: NumberField?

will get you the sourcecode documentation for this procedure.  Using "??" 
instead of "?" will get you the documentation plus source code, so you can see 
the implementation details.

That may help get you started.

We're here to help.  Sometimes, we succeed.

Justin

--
Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-At-Large
Institute for the Absorption of Federal Funds
--------
If you're not confused,
You're not paying attention
--------



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