I've played around a bit more with that and did some more more tests.

Your reply regarding DataFrame explains what Maple does with Excel files during conversion. But that just applies to the data table itself, not the cells within.

I've tried to apply text functions to an imported numeric datacell of the Excel file, and it clearly shows that it is not a text, but a number. The "SearchText" function wasn't working, while a simple multiplication did.

When using this number however as a table index, something is different, as the number of decimals has influence on the content.

Just did a quick test with a matrix as well. In that case Maple doesn't allow any decimals at all, even if they are 0.

So apparently it comes down that that problem again.

I need to convert the input from Excel - which is a number with decimals (all .0) - to a whole number. Those can then be to index the table.

I have to add that both indexes I am using are from an Excel table. The first item is a text, the other item a whole number.

As it is read into Maple, the whole number is converted to a real number with a decimal.

So what I would like to have is to convert that real number to a whole number during or after the input process.

Uploading the material library didn't work...trying once more in new post.

NODEMaterial.mla

I'd just like to thank everyone for the help, and would like to share my first program which you helped me to get done.

Materialdata_Tre.mw

NODEMaterial.mla

Just wanted to add a link to Maple help which I found very useful.

https://www.maplesoft.com/support/help/Maple/view.aspx?path=quotes

First of all, I am very grateful for all of your comments, really appreciate that.

All comments are very helpful, just need to go through all the problems on my own first. Learning by doing...

Anyway, I have finally managed to put together my first Maple program, and am very glad to put it in public for review. Shortly explained, it reads material values from a library, and gives the users a choice to pick a material and shows the corresponding results.

Materialdata_Tre.mw

I've played around a bit more with the digits settings, but this is a bit strange.

• First setting I have tried is Format - Numeric format, which I set to Fixed - 1 decimal place, thousands seperator.
• Second setting I have tried is defining a User profile.

In the first run, nothing worked related to the Mathcontainer.

But funnily there was one change when I upgraded to Maple 2020. Suddenly the Mathcontainers did behave like expected.

That was until I copied the table and did some changes. For the second table the original behaviour is back again, ignoring the wish to just show one digit.

So somehow there seems to be a way to define decimal settings, but I don't know where that should be done.

Materialdata_Tre.mw

Thanks guys, these answers are very interesting, though I am not sure if I do understand everything. I'll try to sum up in my own words.

The first answer "the value assigned to b is the entry in m[a,1], not a reference to its location" shows that Maple clearly does thing a bit different than Mathcad. It's just that one has to know that.

In the second answer, using ' ' the assignment is not to the value, but to the expression. In that case, only when the expression is evaluated, then the result is given.

Interesting...

@dharr 

The use of math container is something I have seen in an example as well, probably it's the best way for showing values with units (which I am doing here).

Any idea how I could format the output? Right now it looks like that, however I'd like to have just 1 digit after the decimal delimiter.

Just wanted to add one more thing.

Originally my problem was that I first entered a 2D math expression, and when running the program this was evaluated. As I just wanted the text, I thought I'd need a text area or label to do that. Found out that I can change a 2D math expression to not be evaluated, so I am going for that one.

Just for the records - Mathcad behaves different.

I've actually found out by myself.

Looks like the apostroph I was using was a wrong one.

` is not the same as '

`f__α`

is actually working, so I can use a 2D defined variable in 1D.

Found out how to do it the other way around also.

assign(`f__α,β`, 1)

I'm sorry, I was a bit quick here. I've done some more tests, and I'm still struggling to make use of the variables in both 1D and 2D notation.

Here's an example where I once define a variable in 2D and try to access it both in 2D and 1D notation. And afterwards the other way around, where I do define the variable first in 1D, and try to use it in 2D afterwards. The problem in the second part is that I can't use the greek alpha.

Download 1D2D.mw

First of all, thanks for the answer.

When running your program I got an error message first. Found out that you had a typo in your first line (opaquemodulues, should be "opaquemodules".

There are a couple of questions in my head, and part of it is that I am not using the exact library as in the example. But I will keep using this example as long as it serves the purpose of understanding.

My next question is - when loading the module with "with(AISCShapes)" the result I am getting is [Property].

Where did you find out that there is a "AISCTable" - or is this a reserved keyword?

In the example there is just the "Property" keyword used as far as I can see.

Cw := Property("W10X54", "Cw");
Property("W10X54", "Cw", "metadata");