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Re: including files

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg53203] Re: including files
• From: AES/newspost <siegman at stanford.edu>
• Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 23:12:32 -0500 (EST)
• References: <cqrgrb$qhd$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

In article <cqrgrb$qhd$1 at smc.vnet.net>,
 Bill Rowe <readnewsciv at earthlink.net> wrote:

> My suggestion would be to use a .m file. These are very easily created.
> 
> From within Mathematica, enter all of the expressions you want evaluated into 
> a notebook. Select the cells with those expressions and set the cell 
> properties as Initialization Cells. Finally, save the notebook in package 
> format using File->Save As Special->Package Format.
> 
> Alternatively, a .m file can be created with any third party text editor. 
> Simply type the desired expressions and save the result with an extension of 
> .m.

Packages can indeed be very useful, and this is good advice -- but in my 
experience at least, slightly incomplete:

1)  There's the BeginPackage[---]; Begin[ ]  stuff and the End[ ]; 
EndPackage[ ] stuff you're supposed to include -- I'm still not sure if 
you _must_ include those (documentation of packages is somewhat arcane); 
and

2)  You have to Save the package in the right place, and maybe in a 
folder with the right name to access it; and

3)  I still not clear about the complex ways in which creating and using 
a package can mess with scopes and contexts, nor whether, if you edit 
the .nb->.m package combo during a session, you have to restart a new 
session to get the edits properly recognized.

But, packages are still very useful, nonetheless . . .