CoCoA:KnownIssues

Every piece of software ever written has had problems or defects called bugs in programming lingo. Even CoCoA isn't an exception to this rule. Here are some pointers to the currently known issues with CoCoA.

In lieu of an official bug tracking system this page holds a list of problems and their status, plus a link to the discussion board, if applicable.

For problems around CoCoALib exists an additional page with known issues. Please consider that page for corresponding problems and do not forget, this is not an official errata page!

Open Bugs in CoCoA 4.3

• None at the moment.

Open Platform Specific Bugs in CoCoA 4.3

• WinCoCoA 4.3: The random number generator appears to use the same seed each time WinCoCoA is started, hence you get the same random numbers.

Closed Bugs

• WinCoCoA 4.3: The TIME command reports back the hundred-fold elapsed time. See this discussion on the CoCoA discussion board. - fixed in WinCoCoA 4.5-rc1

CoCoA 4.3 is not the current release, hence fixing bugs for it is not a high proprity. Please test with the current release (CoCoA 4.5 at the moment) unless there is no release available for your platform.

Open Bugs in CoCoA 4.4

• Calling functions with multiple parameters by reference: This is more a limitation of CoCoA4L than a bug. Chances are that this will never be resolved.
• The sliders in the output window don't move while dragging them with the mouse. Once the mouse button is released the slider jumps to the right place.

Open Platform Specific Bugs

None at the moment.

Closed Bugs

• Element references of nested lists - fixed in CoCoC 4.5
• DecimalStr(-0.5) returns 0.5 - fixed in CoCoC 4.5
• The input window is much wider than the screen and wraps lines outside the visible range. This obviously only shows with very long lines. - fixed in CoCoC 4.5
• polynomial is in a ring-issue - fixed in CoCoC 4.5
• With MacCoCoA: Save as uses a rather simple dialog, i.e. doesn't remember its last directory, etc. - fixed in CoCoC 4.5.1

CoCoA 4.4 is not the current release, hence fixing bugs for it is not a high proprity. Please test with the current release (CoCoA 4.5 at the moment) unless there is no release available for your platform.

Open Bugs in CoCoA 4.5

• 4.5.1: The random number generator always returns the same sequence of random numbers. Patch proposed by Michael Abshoff

Open Platform Specific Bugs in CoCoA 4.5

• WinCoCoA 4.5.2rc2 (and later): Test 1 of radical.ts fails. For more details check out this topic on the CoCoA discussion board.
• WinCoCoA 4.5-rc3: On occasion nothing else than the Interactive window works. You'll get a Calculation in progress... and nothing more else. You can't even interrupt/cancel the running "Computation" normally ("interruption pending!") - up until WinCoCoA4.5-rc2 this always locked up the GUI, now it happens once in a while.
• WinCoCoA 4.5-rc3 (cosmetic issues): When starting WinCoCoA 4.5 a DOS-box pops open. If one closes the DOS-box the main application terminates.
• WinCoCoA 4.5-rc3: More a buglet than a bug, but the CoCoAServer-0.94 packaged with WinCoCoA4.5-rc3 has been compiled with the highest debug-level and is a little chatty.

Closed Bugs

• Inverse(0); -- crash, reported by A.Bigatti - fixed in 4.6 CVS (by John Abbott)

• CoCoA 4.5.1: factoring certain multivariate polynomials would crash CoCoA. This issue has been closed in 4.6CVS (by John Abbott). Two examples are:

F1:=(2x+y)*(x+y)*(x+2y);
Factor(F1); 
F2:=(xx-yy)*(5xx-3yy);
Factor(F2); 

• CoCoA 4.5.1: reported by Fred Rohrer. This issue has been closed in 4.6CVS (by John Abbott)

   [4] >< [];  -- works fine
[ ]
-------------------------------
   [] >< [2];  -- throws error
ERROR: Result is too large
CONTEXT:  CARTESIAN([ ], [2])
-------------------------------

• WinCoCoA 4.5-rc1: ? operator doesn't work - fixed in WinCoCOA 4.5-rc2.
• WinCoCoA 4.5-rc2 (cosmetic issues): The title bar of the help system has squares embedded around the name of the window - fixed in WinCoCOA 4.5-rc3.
• WinCoCoA 4.5-rc2: Emacs mode doesn't work - fixed in WinCoCOA 4.5-rc3. Watch out: path is hard-wired to C:\WinCoCoA4.5-rc3.
• When using the CoCoAServer-0.94 together with the qt-interface no data is returned. All tests with the CoCoAServer fail. This doesn't happen with the textual interface. The problem is being investigated. - fixed in CoCoA 4.5.1

Bugs in CoCoA 4.6

NOTICE: Bugs in the Microsoft version count as features. :-)

Undesirable Features in CoCoA 4.6

• you can create rings without separating the indeterminate names by commas (this is obsolescent)

If you encounter any problems not listed on the pages above you should contact the CoCoA team to get your problem fixed. A good place to do this is the discussion board.