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Robert Dodier's profile - activity

2021-01-21 23:44:14 +0100 received badge  Teacher (source)
2010-08-20 15:56:42 +0100 answered a question How do I understand the result of symbolic integrals

Maxima 5.21.1 gives

-1/x-gamma\_incomplete(0,-x)-gamma\_incomplete(-1,-x)

for

integrate(diff((exp(x) - 1)/x, x), x)

which is correct from what I can tell (agrees numerically with the original expression and has the same derivative).

The result isn't as simple as it could be because the integration algorithm is phrased in more general terms, such that the integrand you specified is a special case of some general form. Often that's the most effective way to calculate integrals, since you can cover a lot of special cases with one general form.