Option variable
assume_pos
Default value: false
When assume_pos
is true
and the sign of a parameter x cannot be determined from the current context
or other considerations,
sign
and asksign (x)
return true
.
This may forestall some automatically-generated asksign
queries,
such as may arise from integrate
or other computations.
By default, a parameter is x such that symbolp (x)
or subvarp (x)
.
The class of expressions considered parameters can be modified to some extent
via the variable assume_pos_pred
.
sign
and asksign
attempt to deduce the sign of expressions
from the sign of operands within the expression.
For example, if a
and b
are both positive,
then a + b
is also positive.
However, there is no way to bypass all asksign
queries.
In particular, when the asksign
argument is a
difference x - y
or a logarithm log(x)
,
asksign
always requests an input from the user,
even when assume_pos
is true
and assume_pos_pred
is
a function which returns true
for all arguments.