yacas(1)

📦 version 1.3.6, in debian bookworm, ubuntu jammy, ubuntu noble

✨ yacas(1) — the manual page bestie 💖

okay so this is the manual page for the General Commands Manual, and it covers two commands: yacas and yacas_client. yes babes, two for the price of one 🫶

🌸 NAME 🌸

yacas, yacas_client — a small and flexible general-purpose computer algebra system. that's it, that's the vibe 💅

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

yacas [options]  [{filename}]

literally just options and maybe a file, iconic behavior honestly

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

This manual page documents briefly the yacas and yacas_client commands. briefly! we're keeping it cute and concise ✨

Yacas (Yet Another Computer Algebra System, iykyk) is a small and highly flexible general-purpose computer algebra language. The syntax uses a infix-operator grammar parser. The distribution comes with a small library of mathematical functions, but ngl that's not even the main character — its real strength is the language itself, where you can easily write your own symbolic manipulation algorithms. The core engine supports arbitrary precision arithmetic, and it's linked with the GNU arbitrary precision math library, and it's able to execute symbolic manipulations on all kinds of mathematical objects by following user-defined rules. slay.

This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution because the original program does not have a manual page. (not me writing docs for a program that forgot to write its own 🙈)

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

A summary of options is given below. bestie, read them all, they're all useful fr fr

  • -c — Inhibit printing of prompts In> and Out>. Useful for non-interactive sessions. no chit-chat, just business 💀
  • -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.) yes, just the first one, don't come for me
  • -p — Does not use terminal capabilities, no fancy editing on the command line and no escape sequences printed. Useful for non-interactive sessions. no sparkle, no escape codes, plain as a piece of paper ✨→📄
  • -t — Enable some extra history recall functionality in console mode: after executing a command from the history list, the next unmodified command from the history list will be automatically entered on the command line. lowkey a time-saver 🕰️
  • {filename} — Reads and executes commands in the filename and exits. Equivalent to Load(). in and out, no lingering 👑
  • -v — Prints version information and exits. tell me who you are and leave 💅
  • -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. mix and match, go off 🌈

🦋 the persistent session situation (yacas_client) 🦋

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. it's giving "my calculator has a group chat" energy 🫶

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. it's just waiting for its moment, and honestly? same 💅

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. one per customer bestie, no cap 🚫

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

for more information. go read, bestie, the lore is deep 📚✨

👑 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). shoutout to the founder, absolute icon 🫶

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

and that's the whole page babes 🌈 this was the yacas(1) manual page, and the footer said yacas(1) too — so yeah, it signed off with its own name, main character energy to the very end 💅✨ bye bestie, go do some symbolic manipulation 🎀

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