Re: Bug 4689 & deprecating limroot

On 5/27/26 12:42 PM, Stavros Macrakis wrote:

> I see that *defmfun / deprecated-p *gives a warning at runtime.
> Wouldn't it be better to give a warning at compile time?
|defmfun| is for functions that a user might call. If it’s done at 
compile-time, no user will ever know that the function is deprecated. 
Hence, it happens at run-time.

This reminds me that there are a few deprecated functions that I said I 
would remove after a release. Well, there was a release not long ago, so 
it’s time to make them go away for real.

It would be kind of nice if there were a end-of-life date for the 
deprecated function so that we would get an error if we tried to compile 
the function after the end-of-life date. On the other hand, that’s just 
more random code to maintain with rather limited utility.

> SBCL provides the *sb-ext:deprecated* declaration, which allows the 
> compiler to issue a warning or error.
> I don't know if other implementations offer that, but it can be 
> emulated using *warn *at macro-expansion time.
>
> On Wed, May 27, 2026 at 8:25 AM David Scherfgen via Maxima-discuss 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>     For defmfun, there's a :deprecated keyword argument, if I remember
>     correctly. For purely internal functions, we could create a macro
>     like defun-deprecated for defining a function that raises the error.
>
>     Barton Willis via Maxima-discuss
>     <[email protected]> schrieb am Mi., 27. Mai
>     2026, 14:05:
>
>         To fix bug 4689 <https://sourceforge.net/p/maxima/bugs/4689/>,
>         I revised the cryptically named function |colexpt|. The
>         revised code no longer requires the function |limroot|. Since
>         |limroot| is not called by any other function and does not
>         appear to be generally useful, I propose to deprecating it.
>         Accordingly, I propose replacing
>
>         (defun limroot (exp power)
>           (cond ((or (atom exp) (not (member (caar exp) '(mtimes
>         mexpt) :test #'eq)))
>              
>           (limroot (list '(mexpt) exp 1) power)) ;This is strange-JIM.
>               ((mexptp exp)  (m^ (cadr exp)
>                              (sratsimp (m* (caddr exp) (m^ power -1.)))))
>               (t (m*l (mapcar #'(lambda (x)
>                               (limroot x power))
>                           (cdr exp))))))
>
>          with
>
>         (defun limroot (&rest args)
>           "limroot is deprecated and no longer available."
>           (declare (ignore args))
>           (merror "limroot is deprecated and no longer available."))
>
>         If anyone has an emotional attachment to |limroot|, speak now
>         or forever hold your peace. There is always the possibility
>         that someone has 1970s-era code on a floppy disk in a sock
>         drawer that still calls it.
>         More seriously: Maxima does not have a uniform mechanism for
>         deprecating functions. If anyone has suggestions for a better
>         approach, I’m happy to hear them.
>
>         --Barton
>
>
>
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