I definitely like the ability to call different libraries with an algorithm argument. It would also be nice to include mpmath as an option since it support many different algorithms and arbitrary precision.
On Oct 27, 5:05 pm, Jason Grout <jason-s...@creativetrax.com> wrote: > Writing some class worksheets yesterday exposed me to our > inconsistencies in numerical integration commands. Currently: > > * numerical_integral calls gsl to do integration, and the syntax is > numerical_integral(f, start, end) or numerical_integral(f, (start, end)). > > * if you have a symbolic expression f, then f.nintegrate(var, start, > end) uses maxima to compute the numerical integral. This returns > several more arguments than the GSL version above. > > * nintegrate/nintegral is not a top-level command > > Here's a proposal: > > * A single top-level command nintegrate/nintegral, which calls the > object's nintegral method, if it exists; otherwise, convert to SR and > call the nintegral method. This mirrors the integral top-level command. > > * Enhance the SR .nintegral method to have an algorithm option: > > - algorithm='gsl' (default) -- call the gsl numerical integration. > In a simple test of integrating sin(x) from 2 to 4, gsl was about 10 > times faster than the current algorithm of calling maxima. Also, change > the gsl command to accept a variable of integration argument, which it > then uses when constructing the fast_float version of the expression if > it is symbolic. > > - algorithm='scipy' -- call the scipy numerical integration routines > (maybe make this the default if it is faster than gsl). > > - algorithm='maxima' -- use maxima numerical integration > > - maybe a sympy option too? > > Also, I noticed that we have both "integral" and "integrate" as > identical top-level commands. What is the purpose? This seems like > needless clutter. What do people think of deprecating one or the other > (I suggest keeping "integrate" and deprecating "integral"). > > Thanks, > > Jason > > -- > Jason Grout --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
