System tools

See examples in System.mw

Procedures

• BuildHelp(source,/hdbfile,{rootkey,catkey,hflkey,tockey,ext,test,printout},$) build or append help database file hdbfile::string:="" (without extension) from a properly formatted source file, which references help-page files with extension ext::string:=".mw", using makehelp command which is skipped if test::boolean is true. The source file is parsed line by line with the following rules:
  • if line starts with rootkey::string:="#root:" then the rest of the line defines the root name in the help-browser;
  • if line starts with catkey::string:="#cat:" then the rest of the line defines the category name;
  • if line starts with hflkey::string:="#hfl:" then the rest of the line defines the name of the help file and the next lines are treated as follows:
  • (a) if line starts with tockey::string:="#toc:" it will be the TOC entry text otherwise the TOC entry will be equal to the topic name,
  • (b) if line starts with # then the rest of the line defines the topic name and its aliases as comma-separated list (surrounding whitespaces are trimmed),
  • (c) otherwise the line is considered as procedure definition and its name is taken as topic name.
  The path to the help files is calculated as folder(source)+helpfilename+ext. The default root is the source filename. In case of rebuilding existing hdb-file one has to delete it first (usually it is protected during Maple session). The format and extension of help files was changed in Maple 18 from ".hdb" to ".help". Do not forget to append libname if necessary.

---

• ReadModules(filename,/prefix::string:="s_",$)::list(string) returns list of modules as strings read from a text file. The filename::string can be either full filename with path or short filename with or without extension (the default extension is ".ini"). The command scans all module definitions and for each module "modulename" assigns its string definition to the variable "prefix|modulename" (existing names will be reassigned without a notice). Module definition must strictly follow the rules:
  • begin module with "\nmodulename:=\nmodule()" and end with "end module" (spaces are allowed only as give in exemples);
  • comments and the word "module" are not allowed within the module definition.
  If you don't want a module to be read by ReadModules, do not start it with "\nmodule()". If filename file does not exist, ReadModules determines the file name fn and extension fx and tries to read ModulesFolder|fn|fx and ModulesFolder|fn/fn|fx.
• AssignModule(moduledef)::module parse module defined by moduledef::string (either string containing module definition or name of the module) and initialize it by parsing a string containing module definition and running :-ModuleInit(_rest) command if the module contain this procedure. If module definition was not initialized, it calls ReadModules. The main aim of AssignModule and ReadModules commands is to create multiple copies of a module, that is not supported in Maple.

---

• ProcessSetupArgs(lsargs,variables,/constants,suffix,$) process Setup arguments, where
  • lsargs::list of keywords or initializing equations for them exactly as in interface command;
  • variables::list(name) known variables;
  • constants::list(name):=[] known constants (cannot be changed);
  • suffix::string:="" to avoid name conflicts, see examples.
  Note that keywords values are not checked!

---

• Check4Updates(/root,packages,{openlinks},$) check for package updates at root::string:="http://zhugayevych.me/maple/" folder. The list to check is given by packages::list(string):=["BasicTools","SSH","FiniteGroups","LatticeTools","MolMod","AstroTools"]. If openlinks::boolean is true, updatable packages are opened by Windows Explorer.

---

• TabulatedFunction(_rest)::module support of tabulated functions. Exported module members:
  • :-XV::list([argument,value]) list of calculated values of the function;
  • :-ModuleApply(x,dr,$)::[argument,value] the tabulated version of the function, where x is a float or any indexable object of floats (lists and Vectors works for sure) and dr::positive:=defdr defines spatial the resolution: if no tabulated points on the distance dr from x are found then the function is calculated for x and the result is appended to XV;
  • :-Remove(x,$) the nearest to x point will be removed from XV;
  • :-Read(filename,/Fdim,convert,$) append XV by data from file filename::string, where Fdim::posint:=1 is the number of the function components and convert::procedure:=(V->Vector[column](V)) converts the raw data to the format of XV entries;
  • :Save(filename,{digits,overwrite},$) save XV data to a file filename::string (empty string means terminal) with digits::posint:=min(10,Digits-2) precision;
  • :-ModuleInit(ForXVorFilename,defdr,/rhof,{Fdim},$) initialize the module with _rest, where ForXVorFilename is either function or XV list or datafile, and rhof::procedure:=((x,y)->`if`( type(x,atomic), abs(x-y), evalf(sqrt(add(v^2,v=x-y))) )) is the metric function.
  It is the extended version of remember tables. Useful if the function evaluation is more demanding than searching the nearest point in the tabulated list.

---

• Timing(/nleft,percentages,{nmin,timestep},$) print progress and time left to finish the computations. Here:
  • nleft::integer:=nLeft number of computations cycles left;
  • percentages::list(posint):=[] at which the progress is printed regardless of time (ignored if nleft<0);
  • nmin::posint:=3 minimum number of cycles for estimating computation time;
  • timestep::positive:=5 minimum separation in seconds between output.
  Real time is used, see time for details. For computations with equal duration of each cycle set nmin as small as possible, i.e. 1 or 2. For computations with random duration of cycles set nmin as large as possible, but not too large because you will wait a long time for the first output. Place Timing at the end of the computation cycle and don't forget to run InitTiming before starting the computations.
• InitTiming(nleft::integer:=-1,{timestep::positive:=10},$)) initializes Timing