Partitioning of algebraic subexpressions in computer algebra systems

Abstract

A popular technique to direct transformations of algebraic expressions in a computer algebra system such as Macsyma/Maxima or Mathematica is to first write out a pattern or template for some expected class of "input" expressions and use a built-in system routine to match it, identifying pieces and giving them names, then proceeding to compute with these parts. Sometimes this is not such a good approach, and an alternative, presented here, may be more appealing.