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Re: Calling functions before loading the package

  • To: mathgroup at christensen.cybernetics.net
  • Subject: [mg841] Re: Calling functions before loading the package
  • From: tgayley (Todd Gayley)
  • Date: Wed, 26 Apr 1995 00:08:10 -0400
  • Organization: Wolfram Research, Inc.

In article <3n4mle$q7o at news0.cybernetics.net> Richard Mercer <richard at seuss.math.wright.edu> writes:
>>>I can switch to the kernel, kill it, go back to the front end,
>>>and execute any command. This automatically starts a clean kernel,
>>>and I'm back in action in less than 60 seconds.
>
>>You can avoid restarting the kernel by using Todd Gayley's excellent
>>CleanSlate.m package, described in The Mathematica Journal 3.3 (Summer
>>1993) and available on MathSource.
>
>I have found CleanSlate (a wonderful idea) to be ineffective in dealing with  
>large packages. I spend most of my time with a megabyte of packages and several  
>hundred additional names in the kernel. CleanSlate was unable to remove them in
>a reasonable length of time; I never observed it to terminate.
>
>Richard Mercer

In this age of MathLink, when quitting and restarting the kernel can be done
without shutting down the front end, CleanSlate is not so useful for 
completely resetting the state of the kernel. What it's good for is freeing
memory by clearing out parts of your session, like packages, or everything
except packages.

CleanSlate is not very fast, and can take longer than restarting the kernel,
but it should be able to rip out a few megs of packages in considerably less
than a minute on a workstation, unless the packages are highly unusual (like
overloading many, many System symbols). If "never terminating" means it took
longer than, say, 4 or 5 minutes, please mail me further information, as
something strange is going on.


Todd Gayley
WRI




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