yacas(1)						      General Commands Manual							  yacas(1)

NAME

       yacas, yacas_client -- small and flexible general-purpose computer algebra system

SYNOPSIS

       yacas [options]	[{filename}]

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents briefly the yacas and yacas_client commands.

       Yacas  (Yet  Another  Computer  Algebra System) is a small and highly flexible general-purpose computer algebra language. The syntax uses a
       infix-operator grammar parser. The distribution contains a small library of mathematical functions, but its real strength is  in  the  lan-
       guage  in  which  you can easily write your own symbolic manipulation algorithms.  The core engine supports arbitrary precision arithmetic,
       and is linked with the GNU arbitrary precision math library, and is able to execute symbolic manipulations on various mathematical  objects
       by following user-defined rules.

       This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page.

OPTIONS

       A summary of options is given below

       -c	 Inhibit printing of prompts "In>" and "Out>". Useful for non-interactive sessions.

       -f	 Reads	standard  input  as  one file, but executes only the first statement in it. (You may want to use a statement block to have
		 several statements executed.)

       -p	 Does not use terminal capabilities, no fancy editing on the command line and no escape sequences printed. Useful for non-interac-
		 tive sessions.

       -t	 Enable some extra history recall functionality in console mode: after executing a command from the history list, the next unmodi-
		 fied command from the history list will be automatically entered on the command line.

       {filename}
		 Reads and executes commands in the filename and exits. Equivalent to "Load()".

       -v	 Prints version information and exits.

       -d	 Prints the path to the Yacas library directory and exits

       The default operation of  Yacas is to run in the interactive console mode.  Yacas  accepts  several  options  that  modify  its	operation.
       Options can be combined.

       In  addition to the console mode, an experimental persistent session facility is provided through the script yacas_client. By means of this
       script, the user can configure third-party applications to pass commands to a constantly running "Yacas server" and get output.	The "Yacas
       server"	is automatically started by yacas_client. It may run on a remote computer; in that case the user should have a user account on the
       remote computer and privileges to execute yacas_client there, as well as rsh or ssh access. The purpose of yacas_client is to enable  users
       to pass commands to Yacas within a persistent session while running another application such as a text editor.

       The script yacas_client reads yacas commands from the standard input and passes them to the running "Yacas server"; it then waits 2 seconds
       and prints whatever output yacas produced up to this time. Usage may looks like this:

       8:20pm Unix>echo "x:=3" | yacas_client
       Starting server.
       [editvi] [gnuplot]
       True;
       To exit Yacas, enter  Exit(); or quit or Ctrl-c. Type ?? for help.
       Or type ?function for help on a function.
       Type 'restart' to restart Yacas.
       To see example commands, keep typing Example();
       In> x:=3
       Out> 3;
       In> 8:21pm Unix>echo "x:=3+x" | yacas_client
       In> x:=3+x
       Out> 6;
       In> 8:23pm Unix>yacas_client -stop
       In> quit
       Quitting...
       Server stopped.
       8:23pm Unix>

       Persistence of the session means that yacas remembered the value of "x" between invocations of yacas_client. If there is  not  enough  time
       for Yacas to produce output within 2 seconds, the output will be displayed the next time you call yacas_client.

       The  "Yacas  server"  is  started  automatically  when  first  used  and  can  be stopped either by quitting yacas or by an explicit option
       yacas_client -stop, in which case yacas_client does not read standard input.

       The script yacas_client reads standard input and writes to standard output, so it can be used via remote shell execution. For instance,	if
       an account "user" on a remote computer "remote.host" is accessible through ssh, then yacas_client can be used remotely like this:

       echo "x:=2;" | ssh user@remote.host yacas_client

       On a given host computer running the "Yacas server", each user currently may have only one persistent Yacas session.

SEE ALSO

       /usr/share/yacas/documentation/books.html       (link	   to	   URL	    file:/usr/share/yacas/documentation/books.html)		or
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~apinkus/manindex.html (link to URL http://www.xs4all.nl/~apinkus/manindex.html)  for more information.

AUTHOR

       yacas was written by Ayal  Pinkus  (apinkus@xs4all.nl).	yacas  is  available  at  http://www.xs4all.nl/~apinkus/yacas.html  (link  to  URL
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~apinkus/yacas.html) .

       This manual page was written by Gopal Narayanan (gopal@debian.org) for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).

																	  yacas(1)