[Axiom-developer] Maple XML and MATH/ML

[Bill Page]

Hi,

I am thinking about the proposed standards for representation of
mathematical documents these days in the context of the new
open source Axiom project

  http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/axiom

so I decided to take a closer look at the Maple release 8
implementation of export to XML and to HTML with MATH/ML. Here
are some links to examples of a very simple Maple worksheet
with the results of these exports

  http://wspage.tripod.com/maple/xml-test1.mws
  http://wspage.tripod.com/maple/xml-test1.html
  http://wspage.tripod.com/maple/xml-test1.xml

Here is what the worksheet contains rendered in standard
ASCII input and output cut-and-paste directly from Maple.

--------

> eq1:=y=alpha*x^n+beta;

                                        n
                      eq1 := y = alpha x  + beta

> eq2:=op(solve({eq1},x));

                                       y - beta
                                    ln(--------)
                                        alpha
                     eq2 := x = exp(------------)
                                         n

> A:=matrix(2,2,(i,j)->a[i,j]);

                           [a[1, 1]    a[1, 2]]
                      A := [                  ]
                           [a[2, 1]    a[2, 2]]

> 

-----------

If you click the 'xml-test1.html' link above, the first
thing you will notice is the download of a java class to render
the strange looking encoded math output format apparently called
XPPMATH, at least that is the tag that is used in both Maple's
internal mws format and in the exported XML.

If you are using an XML enabled browser (e.g. I am using
IE 6.0 on Windows XP at the time I write this), you will see
a pretty printed version of the XML coding. Note: I have made
one small change from the raw Maple output. Maple strings
the XML out in one long unformatted line. I have inserted
some minimal whitespace in the form of new lines at reasonable
places to allow the XML file to be displayed in a readable
manner in ASCII mode.

Observation 1: On vanilla IE 6.0 with no special add-ins the
MATH/ML output does not render properly. There is a missing
closing parenthesis in eq2. Note also that the matrix is
displayed as a graphic and not MATH/ML. Why?

First question: Does anyone know what this encoded format is?
Is there a non-proprietary rendering engine available?

Second question: Why does Maple use this encoded format in it's
XML output? Why doesn't Maple use the MATH/ML mark-up in the
XML file? Perhaps both MATH/ML and XPPMATH should be present?

Observation 2: Although Maple can export to XML and it looks
pretty much complete compared to the native mws format, it
apparently cannot import a worksheet in the format. When I
try to open an XML file (Maple allows an input format of
"Maple worksheet as XML"), all I can get to work is the "text"
format where the XML appears in a Maple text section. Is this
a bug? Am I doing something wrong?

It seems quite likely to me that WMI will be extending
this rudimentary functionality in the next release.

Your comments would be most appreciated.

Regards,
Bill Page

 http://wspage.tripod.com