How to tell maple that derivative of zero is zero when substituting?

Question

I'm trying to use subs in maple to replace derivatives in a longer formula with 0:

subs(diff(u(r),r) = 0, formula);

It seems that if formula only involves first derivatives of u(r) this works as I expect. For example,

formula := diff(u(r),r);
subs(diff(u(r),r) = 0, formula);
                                        0

But if formula involves second derivatives I get a diff(0,r) in the result that won't go away even when using simplify :

formula := diff(u(r),r,r);
subs(diff(u(r),r) = 0, formula);
                                         d
                                         -- 0
                                         dr

(My actual formula is quite long involving first and second derivatives of two variables. I know that all derivatives with respect to a certain variable are 0 and I'd like to remove them).

Answer 1

One way is to use the simplify command with so-called side-relations.

formula := diff(u(r),r,r) + 3*cos(diff(u(r),r,r))
           + diff(u(r),r) + x*(4 - diff(u(r),r,r,r)):

simplify( formula, { diff(u(r),r) = 0 } );

                               3 + 4 x

formula2 := diff(u(r,s),s,s) + 3*cos(diff(u(r,s),r,r))
            + diff(u(r,s),r) + x*(4 - diff(u(r,s),r,s,r,r)):

simplify( formula2, { diff(u(r,s),r) = 0 } );

                          /  2         \      
                          | d          |      
                      3 + |---- u(r, s)| + 4 x
                          |   2        |      
                          \ ds         /      

[edit] I forgot to answer your additonal query about why you got d/dr 0 before. The answer is because you used subs instead of 2-argument eval . The former does purely syntactic substitution, and doesn't evaluate the result. The latter is the one that people often need, without knowing it, and does "evaluation at a (particular) point".

formulaA := diff(u(r),r,r):

subs(diff(u(r),r) = 0, formulaA);

                          d   
                         --- 0
                          dr  

%; # does an evaluation

                           0

eval(formulaA, diff(u(r),r) = 0);

                           0

formulaB := diff(u(r,s),s,r,r,s):

eval(formulaB, diff(u(r,s),r) = 0);

                           0

You can see that any evaluation of those d/dr 0 objects will produce 0. But it's is often better practice to use 2-argument eval than it is to do eval(subs(...)) . People use subs because it sounds like "substitution", I guess, or they see others use it. Sometimes subs is the right tool for the job, so it's important to know the difference.