[GiNaC-list] Parse error involving factorial symbol

[Roberto Bagnara]

On 5/14/21 3:33 PM, Vladimir V. Kisil wrote:
>>>>>> On Fri, 14 May 2021 15:08:09 +0200, Roberto Bagnara <bagnara at cs.unipr.it> said:
> 
>      RB> On 5/14/21 9:52 AM, Vladimir V. Kisil wrote:
>      >> Dear Roberto!  It seems that Ginsh and parser in GiNaC are
>      >> implemented differently. Ginsh understands postfix factorial
>      >> notation like "3!"  but GiNaC parser is not. GiNaC parser is
>      >> still happy with "factorial(3)".  Best wishes, Vladimir
>      >>
> 
>      RB> Thanks Vladimir!  But please help me understand: I did not
>      RB> change anything in the part of the code invoking the GiNaC
>      RB> parser, and I did not change the tests.  So the situation you
>      RB> are describing, i.e., GiNaC parser not understanding postfix
>      RB> factorial notation, is something that changed from, say, 10
>      RB> years ago.  In other words, do you agree that, say, 10 years
>      RB> ago, the GiNaC parser was accepting that notation?
> 
>      It seems that before 2008-08-21 GiNaC and Ginsh had used the same
>    parser, which Ginsh is using till now. After a patch they diverged in
>    this respect. So it is quite well possible that your code was running
>    with the old version of GiNaC but cannot do this now without some alteration.

Dear Vladimir,

This explains everything.  Now I am investigating failures in the regression
test-suite.  One of the most promising examples for my diagnosis efforts
is this:

simplification for output of -1+1/12*sqrt(sqrt(3)*sqrt(12))*sqrt(12)+1/12*sqrt(-sqrt(3)*sqrt(12))*sqrt(12)
was expected to be -1+(1/2+1/2*I)*sqrt(2)
but resulted in -1+(1/2+1/2*I)*4^(1/4)

 From what you write I gather that back in 2008, or even before,
we obtained sqrt(2) where we now obtain 4^(1/4).

Thanks,

    Roberto

-- 
Prof. Roberto Bagnara
Applied Formal Methods Laboratory
Department of Mathematical, Physical and Computer Sciences
University of Parma, Italy
http://www.cs.unipr.it/~bagnara/
mailto:bagnara at cs.unipr.it