Re: usage messages in packages
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg58080] Re: usage messages in packages
- From: "Jens-Peer Kuska" <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
- Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 07:09:28 -0400 (EDT)
- Organization: Uni Leipzig
- References: <5D6FD070-7564-48DC-8311-25DC0738EFA4@akikoz.net> <d8u6ev$87s$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi, at leaste MS-Windows is "case aware", what mean, it save upper and lower case characters but it does not make a difference between it. UNIX systems are typical "case sensitive" and the used upper and lower case characters make a difference. Regards Jens "Andrzej Kozlowski" <akoz at mimuw.edu.pl> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:d8u6ev$87s$1 at smc.vnet.net... > There are a couple of remarks I would like to > add to this posting. > First, I think it ought to be possible to modify > the usage message > mechanism so that usage messages about functions > that are being > overloaded would be appended to the existing > ones rather than > override them. > Secondly: I am wondering whether the ability to > read in packages with > both > > <<DiscreteMath`Combinatorica` > > and > > <<discretemath`combinatorica` > > is operating system dependent, i.e. whether both > of the above work on > OS's that distinguish between lower and upper > case names of files > and directories. I think that means all > flavours of unix except Mac > OS X (?) > Can someone check this? > > Andrzej Kozlowski > > > > > > On 17 Jun 2005, at 08:04, Andrzej Kozlowski > wrote: > >> One aspect of Mathematica packages that seems >> to me to be poorly >> designed is the way package usage messages can >> cover up a built in >> usage messages without any warning. A >> particularly irritating >> instance of this is when a package overloads >> the definition of a >> built in functions so that user receives no >> information at all >> about what happened. As an example compare: >> >> >> ?Normal >> >> Normal[expr] converts expr to a normal >> expression, from a >> variety of special forms. >> >> load the Combinatorica package: >> >> >> <<discretemath`combinatorica` >> >> >> ?Normal >> >> Normal is a value that options VertexStyle, >> EdgeStyle, and \ >> PlotRange can take on in ShowGraph. >> >> Another curious thing. Quit the Kernel and now >> try again loading >> the Combinatorica package in a different way >> >> In[1]:= >> <<discretemath` >> >> This time the usage message was not covered up: >> >> In[2]:= >> ?Normal >> >> Normal[expr] converts expr to a normal >> expression, from a \ >> variety of special forms. >> >> I had never realised that one could load >> directories of packages by >> using only small letters as in the above >> example until I saw Maxim >> doing it. This also works: >> >> << discretemath`combinatorica` >> >> >> Actually, this is consistent with the >> documentation which says: >> >> >> <<dir` , initialize all packages from >> directory dir, >> <<dir`package` , read in a package from >> the named directory >> >> but I had always assumed that "dir" and >> "package" actually meant >> "Dir" and "Package". >> >> >> Andrzej Kozlowski >> Chiba, Japan >> http://www.akikoz.net/andrzej/index.html >> http://www.mimuw.edu.pl/~akoz/ >> >> >> >
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