[metapost] Metafun : is "atan" the arctangent function?

[Daniel H. Luecking]

On Jan 12, 2014, at 9:32am, jkitzm wrote:

>atan is vardef'd in mp-tool.mpiv as:   x-(x**3)/3+(x**5)/5-(x**7)/7 , 
>part of the infinite series form. Maybe better to use asin(a/sqrt(a**2+1))?

The functions asin and acos are similarly defined in mp-tool: 

  vardef asin primary x = (x+(x**3)/6+3(x**5)/40)  enddef ;
  vardef acos primary x = (asin(-x))                      enddef ;

(That second one is just wrong, it should be (90-asin(x)).)
But those functions are redefined a few lines later using "angle": 

  vardef asin   primary x = angle((1+-+x,x)) enddef ;
  vardef acos  primary x = angle((x,1+-+x)) enddef ;

It is unclear why only atan was left with its bad definition. 
This is clearly a bug.

Note that the asin and acos functions return degrees. The file 
mp-tool.mpiv also also defines the alternatives invsin and 
invcos, which return radians. 

Regards,
Dan

-- 
Daniel H. Luecking
Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas