<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE MAN SYSTEM "../../manrev.dtd">
<MAN>
  <LANGUAGE>eng</LANGUAGE>
  <TITLE>percent</TITLE>
  <TYPE>Scilab Function</TYPE>
  <DATE>April 1993</DATE>
  <SHORT_DESCRIPTION name="percent"> (%) special character</SHORT_DESCRIPTION>
  <DESCRIPTION>
    <P>
    Some predefined variables names begin with <VERB>%</VERB>, such as
    <VERB>%i</VERB> (for <VERB>sqrt(-1)</VERB>), <VERB>%inf</VERB> (for <VERB>Infinity</VERB>), <VERB>%pi</VERB> (for <VERB>3.14...</VERB>),
    <VERB>%T</VERB> (for the boolean constant <VERB>&quot;true&quot;</VERB>),...</P>
    <P>
    In addition, functions whose names begin with <VERB>%</VERB> are special : 
    they are used for primitives and operators overloading (see <VERB>overloading</VERB>).</P>
    <P>
    For example the function <VERB>%rmr</VERB> performs the multiplication (<VERB>m</VERB>)
    operation <VERB>x*y</VERB> for <VERB>x</VERB> and <VERB>y</VERB> rational matrices (<VERB>r</VERB>).
    The coding conventions are given by the readme file in 
    directory <VERB>SCIDIR/macros/percent</VERB>.</P>
  </DESCRIPTION>
  <EXAMPLE>
<![CDATA[
x1=tlist('x',1,2);
x2=tlist('x',2,3);
deff('x=%xmx(x1,x2)','x=list(''x'',x1(2)*x2(2),x2(3)*x2(3))');
x1*x2
 ]]>
  </EXAMPLE>
  <SEE_ALSO>
    <SEE_ALSO_ITEM>
      <LINK>overloading</LINK>
    </SEE_ALSO_ITEM>
  </SEE_ALSO>
</MAN>
