Singular

Hello,
How does one print out the code of procedures in the built-in libraries? For example, I want to examine the code of the procedure called "invariant_basis" in finvar.lib.
Is that possible?

Ravi

All the standard distributed libraries are contained in the LIB folder of your distribution. Since they are in plaintext, you may simply look for LIB/finvar.lib and then find the realization of "invariant_basis" by a search command.

Dear Ravi,

you can get the code of any procedure (e.g. invariant_basis) via
string(invariant_basis);

but for this to work you have to call the procedure at least once.
Therefore i suggest you to do the following:



I hope that helps.

Regards,
Oleksandr

Hello,
The finvar.lib file in the LIB folder is a binary file (with text annotations), so I found it easier to use the "string" command suggested by Oleksandr.
The string command only prints to the terminal, so to print to file for easy reading, do this:


Thanks for the help,

Ravi

Dear Ravi,

how do you detect that finvar.lib file in the LIB folder is a binary file (with text annotations)?

AFAIK, LIB/*.lib should be plain text files.
If you cannot read/edit them with a plain text editor then something went wrong...

Besides, you still need to call you procedure before doing:
"write("a-file-name.txt", name-of-procedure);"

Regards,
Oleksandr

Hello,
Yes, I am calling the procedure before calling the write function. (And the second argument is string(proc_name).)

I had opened the finvar.lib file using TextPad (a text editor on Windows) and it actually appears as a binary file there! Maybe something about the way TextPad treats the lib extension?

I checked that it is a plain text file in another plain text editor.

Thanks
Ravi

Right .lib means static library on Windows, so it is assumed to be something binary. Also text files are different (different end of line markers) between Windows and Unix, and therefore some Windows-editors cannot deal with them (notepad can't, while wordpad can).

Regards,
Alexander