Maxima Function
symmdifference (a_1, ..., a_n)
Returns the symmetric difference, that is, the set of members that occur in exactly one set a_k.
Given two arguments, symmdifference ( a, b)
is
the same as union ( setdifference ( a, b), setdifference(b, a))
.
symmdifference
complains if any argument is not a literal set.
Examples:
(%i1) S_1 : {a, b, c}; (%o1) {a, b, c} (%i2) S_2 : {1, b, c}; (%o2) {1, b, c} (%i3) S_3 : {a, b, z}; (%o3) {a, b, z} (%i4) symmdifference (); (%o4) {} (%i5) symmdifference (S_1); (%o5) {a, b, c} (%i6) symmdifference (S_1, S_2); (%o6) {1, a} (%i7) symmdifference (S_1, S_2, S_3); (%o7) {1, z} (%i8) symmdifference ({}, S_1, S_2, S_3); (%o8) {1, z}