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Syntax PDF

The document discusses common syntax errors in Maple and how to avoid them. It notes that every statement must end with a semicolon or colon, parentheses and brackets must be properly matched, the asterisk is required for multiplication, and functions with multiple arguments require grouping in braces. It also mentions that some commands are only available after loading the appropriate library.

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Muhammad Hafiz
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
52 views

Syntax PDF

The document discusses common syntax errors in Maple and how to avoid them. It notes that every statement must end with a semicolon or colon, parentheses and brackets must be properly matched, the asterisk is required for multiplication, and functions with multiple arguments require grouping in braces. It also mentions that some commands are only available after loading the appropriate library.

Uploaded by

Muhammad Hafiz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Maple syntax

The most common kind of mistake to make when using Maple is a syntax error. This
section reviews the basics of Maple syntax and demonstrates several common
syntax errors and how to recover from them.

Don't forget the semi-colon!

Rule 1, of course, is that every Maple statement must end with a semi-colon or a
colon. If you forget to end a statement with a colon, Maple will warn you about this
and let you go back and put the semicolon in.

> int(x^2,x)
Warning, incomplete statement or missing semicolon
At this point you could go back and insert the semicolon.

Match your parentheses! (Brackets and braces,too!)

In Maple statements, there must be a right parenthesis for every left parenthesis, a
right bracket for every left bracket and a right brace for every left one. For instance:

> plot(x^2,x=-2..2;
Syntax error, `;` unexpected
Maple gives you an error message and puts the cursor back on the statement at the
point at which the statement ceased to be syntactically correct. In this example, this
point happens to be where the right parenthesis is needed. Sometimes, however, the
cursor may not be in the place where the correction needs to be made. For instance,
suppose you are trying to assign the expression
(x-3)*sin(x) to the variable y, but you mistakenly type:

> y:=(x-3*sin(x);
Syntax error, `;` unexpected
The statement could have made sense all the way up to the semi-colon (but because
of the unbalanced parentheses, the statement cannot end there); Maple indicates that
something is wrong, but it does not tell (indeed, there is no way to tell) where the
missing parenthesis should go.

Don't forget the * for multiplication...

A common mistake is to forget the asterisk for multiplication. The * is required


whenever multiplication is to be performed. It is especially easy to forget this when
writing Maple for what in standard notation looks like sin(2x) or something similar.
Maple requires you to write sin(2*x) :

> sin(2x);
Syntax error, missing operator or `;`

Group lists of things to plot or equations to solve with braces...

A common error is to forget the braces when plotting several curves in the same
picture, or solving several equations simultaneously:

> plot(x^2,x^3,x=-1..1);
Error, (in plot) invalid arguments

This means that Maple has construed the three arguments to plot as being "x^2 ", "
x^3 " and "x=-1..1 ". The second of these, "x^3 " is not a valid second argument,
because the second argument to plot must be a range (like "x=-1..1 ") or some
other indication of how to do the plot. What to plot must be indicated by the first
argument only. Therefore, to plot several things at once, you must group them
together with braces so that the first argument becomes a set of things to plot:

> plot({x^2,x^3},x=-1..1);
1

0.5

-1 -0.5 0 0.5 1
x

-0.5

-1

That's better.

The same applies to solve:

> solve(x+y=1,x-y=2);
Error, (in solve) invalid arguments
This is the same problem -- the second argument to solve (which is optional) is the
list of variables to solve for. The equations must be in the first argument:

> solve({x+y=1,x-y=2});
3 -1
{x = , y = }
2 2
It is important to remember that the values of the variables are not assigned to them
by the solve statement.

Misspellings

Usually, if you spell the name of a command incorrectly, no syntax error will result.
Maple will just assume that you meant to use a command that has yet to be
specified:

> solbe(x^2+x=4);
solbe( x2 + x = 4 )
You can see that Maple just parrots back the input, because it has no way of
interpreting it. When this happens, it is ok simply to retype the statement correctly,
or even to place the cursor back on the incorrect statement, correct the error, and try
again.

> solve(x^2+x=4);
1 1 1 1
− + 17 , − − 17
2 2 2 2

Commands contained in special libraries...

Some of the commands we will use are contained in special libraries that are not
read in automatically when you start Maple (because there are too many of them).
For example, the commands "leftbox ", "leftsum ", etc.. for illustrating the idea
of integration are contained in the "student " library. To read the commands into
the computer's memory, you must use a "with " statement. If you forget to do this,
Maple will respond as though you misspelled a command:

> leftbox(x^2,x=1..4,10);
leftbox( x2, x = 1 .. 4, 10 )
When Maple parrots like this, and you have ascertained that you spelled the
command correctly, then consider whether you need to read the command in from
the library. For example, to get the leftbox command:

> with(student,leftbox);
[ leftbox ]
The syntax here is

with( "name of library","name(s) of command(s) separated by commas if there are


more than one");
If you want to read in the entire contents of a library (we do this occasionally with
the student library), then with(student); will do this.

Here is a (reasonably) complete list of the commands we will be using from various
libraries in Math 140-141 and 150-151:

student library: leftbox, leftsum, rightbox, rightsum, value,


isolate, changevar, middlebox, middlesum, makeproc,
simpson, trapezoid

plots library: animate, display, display3d, implicitplot,


textplot, tubeplot

linalg library (Math 151 only): addrow, augment, backsub, det,


evalm, gausselim, gaussjord, inverse, matrix, mulrow,
multiply, rank, rref, scalarmul, swaprow, trace, vector

DEtools library: DEplot

stats library (Math 151 only): describe[mean], describe[variance],


describe[standarddeviation], statevalf[...]

simplex library (Math 151 only): maximize, minimize

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