Which systems support a COMPLEX data type?

[robve]

(07-12-2023 07:52 AM)Martin Hepperle Wrote:  The reason why I was asking this question was linked to determining the derivative of functions with a higher degree of accuracy than using common difference schemes (centered, forward, higher order, ...). In the real world you often have a numerical function which has to be evaluated with REAL parameters, but you also sometimes need its derivative which is generally not available in analytical form.

Using complex variables is a very elegant way to achieve an very accurate result close to machine accuracy.
[...]

See also this thread on the HP forums: https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-18482.html

The subject has been presented and discussed elsewhere before on the web, see e.g.

How to Differentiate with a Computer

Dual Numbers & Automatic Differentiation

Automatic differentiation (AD) of program code is interesting. Decades ago I redid the work of ADIFOR in a symbolic CAS-like system I called "Ctadel" to add forward and reverse AD to generate forward differentiated and adjoint Fortran code. The ADIFOR 1996 article is a good read: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/doc...eryWjbG4vA

- Rob