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Example.

If the first command that you enter is:
Input:

2+5

resulting in
Output:

7

then later references to ans(0) will evaluate to 7.


Note that the argument to ans doesn’t correspond to the line number in Xcas. For one thing, the line numbers begin at 1. What’s more, if you go back and re-evaluate a previous line, then that will become part of the commands that ans keeps track of.

If you give ans a negative number, then it counts backwards from the current input. To get the latest output, for example, you can use ans(-1). With no argument, ans() will also return the latest output.

Similarly, the quest command returns the previous inputs. Since these will often be simplified to be the same as the output, quest(n) sometimes has the same value as ans(n).

You can also use Ctrl plus the arrow keys to scroll through previous inputs. With the cursor on the command line, Ctrl+uparrow will go backwards in the list of previous commands and display them on the current line, and Ctrl+downarrow will go forwards.


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