What could be done with a module whose ModuleLoad routine redefined itself?

Could such a routine do some action, and then cover its tracks effectively by overwriting itself?

Would there be any way to use march() to examine the .mla archive member, in which that ModuleLoad routine is stored, without accessing the name of the module? Presumably any invocation of the actual module name would result in its being accessed from the library and hence trigger its ModuleLoad routine.

There are some routines in Maple's library which, when called the first time, redefine themselves.

One plausible explanation for this is that the new versions are session dependent (external calls, say) while also more efficient to call (repeatedly).

For example, consider StringTools:-Join which seems typical of that package. First, consider it before it's been called at all.

> restart:
> showstat(StringTools:-Join);
 
StringTools:-Join := proc(...

There are a number of facilities in Maple which may be extended. Included amongst those are `type`, `print`, `evalf`, and `latex`. The help-page ?extension_mechanism claims that all the built-in functions allow for extension. It also mentions a few system Library routines such as `verify` (but does not mention `latex`).

There are some descriptions of varying completeness in a few...

This page says that there are five rankings in this table. But there are only four.

Each time I edit and resubmit a comment, user <blank> gains a point and I lose one.

The points aren't very important, but hey a bug's a bug.