define a 4th rank tensor in Maple - matlab

Question

I am a newbie in Maple. Could you please help me to convert the following short code from Matlab to Maple:
I=0.0;
for i1=1:3
I(i1,i1,i1,i1)=1.0;
end
I've tried to write it like:
unprotect(I);
I:=0.0;
for i1 from 1 to 3 do
for i2 from 1 to 3 do
for i3 from 1 to 3 do
for i4 from 1 to 3 do
if i1=i2 and i2=i3 and i3=i4 then I[i1,i2,i3,i4]:=1.0;
else I[i1,i2,i3,i4]:=0.0;
end if;
od;
od;
od;
od;
But it gives the following error:
Error, illegal use of an object as a name
Error, illegal use of an object as a name
Can anybody tell me what's wrong?
Thank you,

Answer 1

It'd be easier if you didn't insist on using the name I, which in Maple has the special meaning of the sqrt of -1.
restart;
interface(imaginaryunit=j):
local I:=Array((1..3)$4,datatype=float[8]);
for i1 from 1 to 3 do
I[i1,i1,i1,i1]:=1.0;
end do:
The above produces I as a 4-dimensional Array, where each dimension has a width of three elements. And the three "long diagonal" elements are all initialized to 1.0. And the Array can contain hardware double precision floats. And all the other elements are 0.0 by default.
Is that what you were trying to do?
If you don't insist on calling assigning it to the special name I then things are easier. Eg,
restart;
II:=Array((1..3)$4,datatype=float[8]):
for i1 from 1 to 3 do
II[i1,i1,i1,i1]:=1.0;
end do:
You cannot properly override/disable the special meaning of I merely by unprotecting it. (And even if you could, unprotecting and redefining I is an unworkable idea since a significant portion of Maple commands would then no longer compute properly in the given session.)
Recent versions of Maple allows you to create a so-called top-level "local" instance of that name, which can be used separately from the usual global name I. If you insist on that route, and if your Maple version is recent enough to support that, then you'd probably also want to change the
interface setting for the imaginary unit (sqrt of -1) so that things don't get too confusing. That's why I showed it in the first example above.
But I really think that you'd find things easiest if you just used another name, like II or what have you.
You don't need to put the datatype=float[8] restriction on the Array. But if your subsequent code mimics some (originally) Matlab code then maybe floats are all that will be assigned into the Array. And some operations on Arrays can be much faster, with it. See how it goes.