Re: comparison operators and %pi

I find the behaviour of constants rather inconsistent.  And it's odd that
%e::Float doesn't work, but %e+0::Float (and any other arithmetic involving
%e) does.  Also, the Euler-Mascheroni constant should be in there!

-Alasdair

On 24 May 2007 20:09:32 +0200, Martin Rubey <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
> "Sumant S.R. Oemrawsingh" <[email protected]> writes:
>
> > I just find this very strange:
> > (1) -> %e
> >
> >    (1)  %e
> >                                                      Type: Expression
> Integer
> > (2) -> %pi
> >
> >    (2)  %pi
> >                                                                      Type:
> Pi
> >
> > Why is %e of type Expression Integer, while %pi is of type Pi? Is there
> some
> > deeper reason why Pi is its own type?
>
> For some reasons, the original developers of axiom found %pi more
> important
> than %e.  For elements of Expression Integer there is no direct conversion
> to
> Float, so they created an own domain HackPi, which contains only %pi and
> the
> necessary conversion functions.  The didn't want to do the same thing with
> %e
> though:
>
> (2) -> %e::Float
>
>    Cannot convert from type Expression Integer to Float for value
>    %e
>
>
> In my opinion, we should have a domain for "general" constants, i.e., like
> Expression Integer but without variables, and, more generally, a domain
> for
> expressions with a given set of variables, similar to MPOLY.  But I guess,
> that's a fair bit of work.
>
>
> Martin
>
>
>
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