[Maxima] Problems with improper integrals

[Raymond Toy (RT/EUS)]

Alexios Tamparopoulos wrote:
> About the first issue, I  noticed that [assume] does not take away 
> useless questions, and that's what I would like to know about. Here's 
> another example:
> 
> assume(a>0,a<1);
> f8(x):=%e^(a*x)/(1+%e^x);
> integrate(f8(x),x,minf,inf);
> 
> I get the questions:
> 
> Is  %e^a - %e   positive, negative, or zero?
> Is a  an integer ?
> 
> Again, [assume] can cut 2 out of the 4 questions, but these printed 2 
> still remain trivial to answer. What I don't really get is: Maxima is 
> making so sophisticated calculations but is not able answer to these 
> questions it asks?

I think the bottom line is that assume is fairly stupid.  Yes, it would 
be nice if maxima could answer these questions by itself.

Ray