Maxima Function
expand (expr)
expand(expr,p,n)
Expand expression expr. Products of sums and exponentiated sums are multiplied out, numerators of rational expressions which are sums are split into their respective terms, and multiplication (commutative and non-commutative) are distributed over addition at all levels of expr.
For polynomials one should usually use ratexpand
which uses a
more efficient algorithm.
maxnegex
and maxposex
control the maximum negative and
positive exponents, respectively, which will expand.
expand (expr, p, n)
expands expr,
using p for maxposex
and n for maxnegex
.
This is useful in order to expand part but not all of an expression.
expon
- the exponent of the largest negative power which is
automatically expanded (independent of calls to expand
). For example
if expon
is 4 then (x+1)^(-5)
will not be automatically expanded.
expop
- the highest positive exponent which is automatically
expanded. Thus (x+1)^3
, when typed, will be automatically expanded
only if expop
is greater than or equal to 3. If it is desired to have
(x+1)^n
expanded where n
is greater than expop
then executing
expand ((x+1)^n)
will work only if maxposex
is not less than n
.
The expand
flag used with ev
causes expansion.
The file simplification/facexp.mac
contains several related functions (in particular facsum
, factorfacsum
and collectterms
, which are autoloaded) and variables (nextlayerfactor
and facsum_combine
) that provide the user with the ability to structure
expressions by controlled expansion.
Brief function descriptions are available in simplification/facexp.usg
.
A demo is available by doing demo("facexp")
.