Sorry for the basic question, but it's quite hard to find too much discussion on Maxima specifics.
I'm trying to learn some Maxima and wanted to use something like
x:2
x+=2
which as far as I can tell doesn't exist in Maxima. Then I discovered that I can define my own operators as infix operators, so I tried doing
infix("+=");
"+=" (a,b):= a:(a+b);
However this doesn't work, as if I first set x:1 then try calling x+=2, the function returns 3, but if I check the value of x I see it hasn't changed.
Is there a way to achieve what I was trying to do in Maxima? Could anyone explain why the definition I gave fails?
Thanks!
The problem with your implementation is that there is too much and too little evaluation -- the += function doesn't see the symbol x so it doesn't know to what variable to assign the result, and the left-hand side of an assignment isn't evaluated, so += thinks it is assigning to a, not x.
Here's one way to get the right amount of evaluation. ::= defines a macro, which is just a function which quotes its arguments, and for which the return value is evaluated again. buildq is a substitution function which quotes the expression into which you are substituting. So the combination of ::= and buildq here is to construct the x: x + 2 expression and then evaluate it.
(%i1) infix ("+=") $
(%i2) "+="(a, b) ::= buildq ([a, b], a: a + b) $
(%i3) x: 100 $
(%i4) macroexpand (x += 1);
(%o4) x : x + 1
(%i5) x += 1;
(%o5) 101
(%i6) x;
(%o6) 101
(%i7) x += 1;
(%o7) 102
(%i8) x;
(%o8) 102
So it is certainly possible to do so, if you want to do that. But may I suggest maybe you don't need it? Modifying a variable makes it harder to keep track, mentally, what is going on. A programming policy such as one-time assignment can make it easier for the programmer to understand the program. This is part of a general approach called functional programming; perhaps you can take a look at that. Maxima has various features which make it possible to use functional programming, although you are not required to use them.