Looks like the rk function in Maxima doesn't try hard enough to float-ify its argument. I haven't looked at the code, but maybe rk can call COERCE-FLOAT-FUN to construct a function to evaluate the expression. At least that would bring it into line with other Maxima functions which evaluate expressions to numbers (e.g. plotting, quadpack).
Follow-ups to the Maxima mailing list. I've appended the original message below. best Robert Dodier PS. On Apr 19, 8:38 am, jvkersch <joris.vankerscha...@gmail.com> wrote: > Technically, this is not a Sage problem, but I figured I would post it > here anyway since others might have run into the same problem, and I'm > also trying to solve the problem using some Sage/python trickery. > > The problem concerns the use of symbolic constants such as pi in > numerical integration with desolve_rk4. The following code is adapted > from the manual page for desolve_rk4 -- note especially the constant > pi in the specification of the ODE: > > x, y = var('x y') > desolve_rk4(x*y*(2-y) + pi, y, ics=[0, 1], end_points=1, step=0.5) > > and raises the following error: > > TypeError: Error executing code in Maxima > CODE: > sage1 : rk(%pi-x*(y-2)*y,y,1,[x,0,1,0.500000000000000]) $ > Maxima ERROR: Inconsistent set of equations and variables > > This same error occurs whenever you have an ODE with pi in it, no > matter how simple. The error persists when directly running this > command in Maxima, but works fine (both in Sage and Maxima) when > manually replacing pi by 3.14... Since I don't know any Maxima, I > have no idea of what the problem could be or where to look. > > So, I was wondering if there is a way to have Sage replace the %pi > when invoking Maxima by the corresponding numerical value? I guess I > could store my ODE in a string and use a regular expression to get rid > of any pi's myself, but that seems very inelegant. Is there anything > you would recommend? > > Thanks a lot, > Joris -- To post to this group, send email to sage-support@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-support+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-support URL: http://www.sagemath.org