[Scilab-users] Some details on the documentation of log(), log10(), etc.

Mon Feb 22 09:43:55 CET 2021

Hello all,

Thanks for opening the discussion on this “new user”-related topic, this is always good to improve our help for existing user and new comers ; to let them havie a clear understanding of Scilab-lingua.

One important point to me is to have a proper distinction between “array” (as values organized in multiple dimensions) and more precise terms with more constraints on dimensions “horizontal vector”, “matrix”, etc… For keeping the rationale up to date, I suggest you to edit the Localization wiki page [1].

In term of code update, I can help you finding duplicated messages but keep in mind that the build-system create .pot files from the source code. To look for duplicate, the more important is to upgrade the source code.

[1]: https://wiki.scilab.org/Localization in English - Standard messages

Note: AFAK the “constant” term has been removed on 6.0.0 documentation/error message as this is the default datatype, in case of advanced type management the term “decimal” can be used instead.

Regards,
Clément

From: users <users-bounces at lists.scilab.org> On Behalf Of Stéphane Mottelet
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2021 5:35 PM
To: users at lists.scilab.org
Subject: Re: [Scilab-users] Some details on the documentation of log(), log10(), etc.

By looking into the documentation messages I realized that we already use "array" :

./locale/de_DE/LC_MESSAGES/scilab.po-e:msgid "%s: Wrong type for input argument #%d: Array of double expected.\n"

S.
Le 20/02/2021 à 17:21, Stéphane Mottelet a écrit :

Hi Frederico,

In almost all other numerical software the object defined in Scilab by a=zeros(3,3,3) is called an "array", m=zeros(3,3) a "matrix" and x=zeros(1,3) or y=zeros(3,1) "vectors", and all of them are called "arrays". BTW, now the "hyper" prefix sounds like when it is used in "hyperspace"... To me, the documentation should be revamped to always use "array" when the denoted object can have any number of dimensions and use "matrix" only when the array has to be a matrix. Concerning your remark about the "constant vector or constant matrix", yes, this should be changed by something more explicit, like "array of double". We already use similar terms in error messages, i.e.

"%s: Wrong type for input argument #%d: A matrix of double expected.\n"

Hence we could synchonize the uses of localized messages with the documentation. When I say "we" it also includes "you", Frederico. If you feel that Scilab could be improved by a better documentation, please contribute. If you need some help to start using the relevant tools (git, codereview) I would be glad to help you.

S.
Le 20/02/2021 à 01:29, Federico Miyara a écrit :

Dear all,

In an old script where I needed to apply log10 to an hyperarray I had implemented it as log(A)/log(10) with a comment indicating that in that version log10() didn't work for hyperarrays (unfortunately I don't recall what version it was).

In Version 6.1.0 it does work for hyperarrays, but the documentation still says that it applies to vectors or matrices:

https://help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/log10.html<https://antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/log10.html>

In some contexts "matrix" may be interpreted as an hyperarray or hypermatrix (for instance when speaking of N-D matrices), but for Scilab a matrix is formally a two-dimensional array:

https://help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/matrices.html<https://antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/matrices.html>

I think the documentation should indicate that it applies to vectors, matrices and hypermatrices

Another problem is regarding log(). It says that the input argument is a "constant vector or constant matrix":

https://help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/log.html<https://antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/log.html>

However, it seems that "constant" has a specific meaning in Scilab as a predefined variable:

https://help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/section_421ab29126e21a1e1e403ee27a18fda4.html<https://antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/section_421ab29126e21a1e1e403ee27a18fda4.html>

As it is worded, it seems that log() is applied to predefined variables. I think it should refer more clearly to the type double (it doesn't work, for instance, for integer types such as int16(2)).

In the case of log2() the description of arguments is even stranger:

https://help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/log2.html<https://antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/antispam.utc.fr/proxy/2/c3RlcGhhbmUubW90dGVsZXRAdXRjLmZy/help.scilab.org/docs/6.1.0/en_US/log2.html>

It confuses the argument section with the description, and it specifies decimal numbers which isn't a recognized type.

The function exp(), on the other hand, doesn't indicate an output argument.

I think these functions are very similar and their documentation pages should be consistent with one another

Regards,

Federico Miyara

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Stéphane Mottelet

Ingénieur de recherche

EA 4297 Transformations Intégrées de la Matière Renouvelable

Département Génie des Procédés Industriels

Sorbonne Universités - Université de Technologie de Compiègne

CS 60319, 60203 Compiègne cedex

Tel : +33(0)344234688

http://www.utc.fr/~mottelet
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