How to use chdir() in Maxima in a more flexible way? - maxima

I often put the following lines at the beginning of my Maxima files
load("operatingsystem")$
chdir("/Users/tilda/Documents/progs/maxima/spm/")$
to make sure that output created by other programs from within Maxima is written into the current working directory as indicated above.
It does its job, yet this method is rather inflexible as the user's home directory, i.e.
/Users/tilda
is hardcoded into the program. So, when I exchange these files, users have to manually edit and adjust the code to their $HOME. To fix this I changed the code to various forms of
load("operatingsystem")$
chdir("$HOME/Documents/progs/maxima/spm/")$
just to get (Lisp) error messages. After consulting the manual and some trial and error I came up with this:
(%i1) load("operatingsystem")$
getenv("HOME")$
chdir(%)$
chdir("Documents/progs/maxima/spm/")$
getcurrentdirectory();
which works fine. For other users, i.e. matthias, the current directory now indeed is in their path.
(%o5) /Users/matthias/Documents/progs/maxima/spm/
However, I wonder if there is a more elegant and shorter way to achieve this.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Cheers
Tilda

Related

How to deobfuscate this?

I obfuscated this script using some site
But i'm wondering how to deobfuscate it? can someone help me?
i tried using most decompilers and a lot of ways but none has worked
local howtoDEOBFUSCATEthis_Illll='2d2d341be85c64062f4287f90df25edffd08ec003b5d9491e1db542a356f64a488a1015c2a6b6d4596f2fa74fd602d30b0ecb05f4d768cd9b54d8463b39729eb1fe84630c0f8983f1a0087681fe4f2b322450ce07b
something like that for an example.
the whole script: https://pastebin.com/raw/fDGKYrH7
First reformat into a sane layout. a newline before every local and end will do a lot. Then indenting the functions that become visible is pretty easy.
After that use search replace to inline constants. For example: local howtoDEOBFUSCATEthis_IlIlIIlIlIlI=8480; means you can replace every howtoDEOBFUSCATEthis_IlIlIIlIlIlI with 8480. Though be careful about assignments to it. If there are any then it's better to rename the variable something sensible.
If an identifier has no match you can delete the statement.
Eventually you get to functions that are actually used.
Looking at the code it seems to be an interpreter implementation. I believe it's a lua interpreter
Which means that you'll need to verify that and decompile what the interpreter executes.

What is the recommended way to make & load a library?

I want to make a small "library" to be used by my future maxima scripts, but I am not quite sure on how to proceed (I use wxMaxima). Maxima's documentation covers the save(), load() and loadFile() functions, yet does not provide examples. Therefore, I am not sure whether I am using the proper/best way or not. My current solution, which is based on this post, stores my library in the *.lisp format.
As a simple example, let's say that my library defines the cosSin(x) function. I open a new session and define this function as
(%i0) cosSin(x) := cos(x) * sin(x);
I then save it to a lisp file located in the /tmp/ directory.
(%i1) save("/tmp/lib.lisp");
I then open a new instance of maxima and load the library
(%i0) loadfile("/tmp/lib.lisp");
The cosSin(x) is now defined and can be called
(%i1) cosSin(%pi/4)
(%o1) 1/2
However, I noticed that a substantial number of the libraries shipped with maxima are of *.mac format: the /usr/share/maxima/5.37.2/share/ directory contains 428 *.mac files and 516 *.lisp files. Is it a better format? How would I generate such files?
More generally, what are the different ways a library can be saved and loaded? What is the recommended approach?
Usually people put the functions they need in a file name something.mac and then load("something.mac"); loads the functions into Maxima.
A file can contain any number of functions. A file can load other files, so if you have somethingA.mac and somethingB.mac, then you can have another file that just says load("somethingA.mac"); load("somethingB.mac");.
One can also create Lisp files and load them too, but it is not required to write functions in Lisp.
Unless you are specifically interested in writing Lisp functions, my advice is to write your functions in the Maxima language and put them in a file, using an ordinary text editor. Also, I recommend that you don't use save to save the functions to a file as Lisp code; just type the functions into a file, as Maxima code, with a plain text editor.
Take a look at the files in share to get a feeling for how other people have gone about it. I am looking right now at share/contrib/ggf.mac and I see it has a lengthy comment header describing its purpose -- such comments are always a good idea.
For principiants, like me,
Menu Edit:configure:Startup commands
Copy all the functions you have verified in the first box (this will write your wxmaxima-init.mac in the location indicated below)
Restart Wxmaxima.
Now you can access the functions whitout any load() command

Using signature file in script

I like using .fsi signature files to control visibility. However, if I have both Foo.fsi and Foo.fs files in my solution, and #load "Foo.fs" in a script, it doesn't seem like the corresponding signature file gets used. If I do:
#load "Foo.fsi"
#load "Foo.fs"
... then the desired visibility control happens. Is this the recommended way to achieve this, or is there a better way to do it? In a perfect world, one would like to see the signature file automatically loaded, too.
Not a final answer, but a better way.
From reading Expert F# 4.0 one can do
#load "Foo.fsi" "Foo.fs" "Foo.fsx"
All three loads are on one line.
TL;DR
The link to the book is via WolrdCat just put in a zip code and it will show you locations near there where the book can be found.

In rails.vim why do I get "E345 can't find file in path" errors?

I've been learning Ruby/Rails with vim. Tim Pope's rails.vim seems like a really good tool to traverse files with, but I keep getting these pesky "E345 can't find file in path" errors. I'm not vim expert yet, so the solution isn't obvious. Additionally, I've tried this and it doesn't apply to my problem.
As an example of the problem. I have a method format_name defined in app/helpers/application_helper.rb and it is used in app/helpers/messages_helper.rb. Within the latter file I put my cursor over the usage of format_name and then hit gf and I get that error. Similar disfunction with commands like ]f and [f
However, it works sometimes. I was able to gf from user to the app/models/user.rb
Ideas?
I think that is a limitation of rails.vim. It does not support “finding” bare methods. Supporting something like that would require one of the following:
an exhaustive search of all the source files for each “find” request
(which could be expensive with large projects),
“dumb” indexing of method names
(e.g. Exuberant Ctags and gControl-]; see :help g_CTRL-]), or
smart enough parsing of the code to make a good guess where the method might be defined
(which is hard to do properly).
If you know where the method is, you can extend many of the navigation commands with a method name:
:Rhelper application#format_name
But, you do not have to type all of that in. Assuming the cursor is on format_name you can probably just type:RhTabspaceappTab#Control-R Control-W (see :help c_CTRL-R_CTRL-W).

Examples of getting it wrong first, on purpose

I just caught myself doing something I do a lot, and wanted to generalize it, express it, share it and see who else is following this general practice, to find some other example situations where it might be relevant.
The general practice is getting something wrong first, on purpose, to establish that everything else is right before undertaking the current task.
What I was trying to do, specifically, was to find examples in our code base where the dojo TextArea widget was used. I knew (because I had it in front of me - existence proof) that the TextBox widget was present in at least one file. So I looked first for what I knew was there:
grep -r digit.form.TextBox | grep -v
svn
This wasn't right - I had made a common (for me) mistake of leaving off the star, so I fixed that:
grep -r digit.form.TextBox * | grep
-v svn
which found no results! Quick comparison with the file I was looking at showed me I had misspelled "dijit":
grep -r dijit.form.TextBox * | grep
-v svn
And now I got results. Cool; doing it wrong first on purpose meant my query was correct except for looking for the wrong thing, so now I could construct the right query:
grep -r dijit.form.TextArea * | grep
-v svn
and be confident that when it gave me no results, it was because there are no such files, and not because I had malformed the query.
I'll add three other examples as answers; please add any others you're aware of.
TDD
The red-green-refactor cycle of test-driven development may be the archetype of this practice. With red, demonstrate that the functionality doesn't exist; then make it exist and demonstrate that you've done so by witnessing the green bar.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/275085
This VBA routine turns off the "subdatasheets" property for every table in your MS Access database. The user is instructed to make sure error-handling is set to "Break only on unhandled errors." The routine identifies tables needing the fix by the error that is thrown. I'm not sure this precisely fits your question, but it's always interesting to me that the error is being used in a non-error way.
Here's an example from VBA:
I also use camel case when I Dim my variables. ThisIsAnExampleOfCamelCase. As soon as I exit the VBA code line if Access doesn't change the lower case variable to camel case then I know I've got a typo. [OR, Option Explicit isn't set, which is the post topic.]
I also use this trick, several times an hour at least.
arrange - assert - act - assert
I sometimes like, in my tests, to add a counter-assertion before the action to show that the action is actually responsible for producing the desired outcome demonstrated by the concluding assertion.
When in doubt of my spelling, and of my editor's spell-checking
We use many editors. Many of them highlight misspelled words as I type them - some do not. I rely on automatic spell checking, but I can't always remember whether the editor of the moment has that feature. So I'll enter, say, "circuitx" and hit space. If it highlights, I'll back up over the space and the "x" and type another space - and learn that I spelled circuit correctly - but if it doesn't, I'll copy the word and paste it into a known spell-checker to see whether I did.
I'm not sure it's the best way to act, as it does not prevent you from mispelling the final command, for example typing "TestArea" or something like that instead of "TextArea" (your finger just have to slip a little for such a mistake).
IMHO the best way is to run your "final" command, but on two sample files first : one containing the requested text, another that doesn't.
In other words, instead of running a "similar" command, run the real one, but over "similar" data.
(Not sure if this would be a good idea to try for real!)
For example, you might give the system to the users for testing and tell them the password to get started is "Apple".
You know the users are fully up and ready to test (everything is installed and connections to databases working) when they contact you and say the password doesn't work (it's actually "Orange").

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