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On-Line Info for MAXIMA

The UNIX command


% man maxima
brings up an on-line manual page for Maxima on your screen. It contains useful information and should be read by beginners.

There are also several help facilities. For example, if you remember just a part of a functions name, factor, and want to get a list of all Maxima commands whose name contain factor, you could use the UNIX-level command mhelp. A list of all commands which contain factor will be shown. Then you can select a number corresponding to a command for further information.


%  mhelp   factor

mhelp: grep reports more than one match. select: 1 dontfactor 2 expandwrt_factored 3 factor 4 factorflag 5 factorial 6 factorout 7 factorsum 8 gcfactor 9 gfactor 10 gfactorsum 11 minfactorial 12 numfactor 13 polyfactor 14 savefactors 15 scalefactors 16 solvefactors

enter option: 1

DONTFACTOR default: [] may be set to a list of variables with respect to which factoring is not to occur. (It is initially empty). Factoring also will not take place with respect to any variables which are less important (using the variable ordering assumed for CRE form) than those on the DONTFACTOR list.

The last line displayed by mhelp is usually the first line of the next command in the database and should be ignored.

farrell@mcs.kent.edu