arbitrary objects. Rather, non-commutativity in GiNaC is a property of the
classes of objects involved, and non-commutative products are formed with
the usual @samp{*} operator, as are ordinary products. GiNaC is capable of
-figuring out by itself which objects commute and will group the factors
+figuring out by itself which objects commutate and will group the factors
by their class. Consider this example:
@example
As can be seen, GiNaC pulls out the overall commutative factor @samp{-16} and
groups the non-commutative factors (the gammas and the su(3) generators)
together while preserving the order of factors within each class (because
-Clifford objects commute with color objects). The resulting expression is a
+Clifford objects commutate with color objects). The resulting expression is a
@emph{commutative} product with two factors that are themselves non-commutative
products (@samp{gamma~mu*gamma~nu} and @samp{T.a*T.b}). For clarification,
parentheses are placed around the non-commutative products in the output.
canonicalize themselves according to rules specified in the implementation
of the non-commutative classes. The drawback is that to work with other than
the built-in algebras you have to implement new classes yourself. Symbols
-always commute and it's not possible to construct non-commutative products
+always commutate and it's not possible to construct non-commutative products
using symbols to represent the algebra elements or generators. User-defined
functions can, however, be specified as being non-commutative.
expressions in GiNaC:
@itemize
-@item @code{return_types::commutative}: Commutes with everything. Most GiNaC
+@item @code{return_types::commutative}: Commutates with everything. Most GiNaC
classes are of this kind.
@item @code{return_types::noncommutative}: Non-commutative, belonging to a
certain class of non-commutative objects which can be determined with the
- @code{return_type_tinfo()} method. Expressions of this category commute
+ @code{return_type_tinfo()} method. Expressions of this category commutate
with everything except @code{noncommutative} expressions of the same
class.
@item @code{return_types::noncommutative_composite}: Non-commutative, composed
of non-commutative objects of different classes. Expressions of this
- category don't commute with any other @code{noncommutative} or
+ category don't commutate with any other @code{noncommutative} or
@code{noncommutative_composite} expressions.
@end itemize
which takes two arguments: the index and a @dfn{representation label} in the
range 0 to 255 which is used to distinguish elements of different Clifford
algebras (this is also called a @dfn{spin line index}). Gammas with different
-labels commute with each other. The dimension of the index can be 4 or (in
+labels commutate with each other. The dimension of the index can be 4 or (in
the framework of dimensional regularization) any symbolic value. Spinor
indices on Dirac gammas are not supported in GiNaC.
GiNaC will complain and/or produce incorrect results.
@cindex @code{dirac_gamma5()}
-There is a special element @samp{gamma5} that commutes with all other
+There is a special element @samp{gamma5} that commutates with all other
gammas, has a unit square, and in 4 dimensions equals
@samp{gamma~0 gamma~1 gamma~2 gamma~3}, provided by
which takes two arguments: the index and a @dfn{representation label} in the
range 0 to 255 which is used to distinguish elements of different color
-algebras. Objects with different labels commute with each other. The
+algebras. Objects with different labels commutate with each other. The
dimension of the index must be exactly 8 and it should be of class @code{idx},
not @code{varidx}.
@end cartouche
To determine whether an expression is commutative or non-commutative and if
-so, with which other expressions it would commute, you use the methods
+so, with which other expressions it would commutate, you use the methods
@code{return_type()} and @code{return_type_tinfo()}. @xref{Non-commutative objects},
for an explanation of these.
option which is explained in the next section.
+@subsection Functions with a variable number of arguments
+
+The @code{DECLARE_FUNCTION} and @code{REGISTER_FUNCTION} macros define
+functions with a fixed number of arguments. Sometimes, though, you may need
+to have a function that accepts a variable number of expressions. One way to
+accomplish this is to pass variable-length lists as arguments. The
+@code{Li()} function uses this method for multiple polylogarithms.
+
+It is also possible to define functions that accept a different number of
+parameters under the same function name, such as the @code{psi()} function
+which can be called either as @code{psi(z)} (the digamma function) or as
+@code{psi(n, z)} (polygamma functions). These are actually two different
+functions in GiNaC that, however, have the same name. Defining such
+functions is not possible with the macros but requires manually fiddling
+with GiNaC internals. If you are interested, please consult the GiNaC source
+code for the @code{psi()} function (@file{inifcns.h} and
+@file{inifcns_gamma.cpp}).
+
@node Printing, Structures, Symbolic functions, Extending GiNaC
@c node-name, next, previous, up
git://www.ginac.de / ginac.git / blobdiff