In many areas of mathematics it is informative to conduct numerical experiments.


But, it not uncommon that the searches do not lead to the examples or data one was hoping for. Since the numerical searches can be quite time consuming, it seems useful to share these negative results, so that others avoid spending time attempting the same searches.



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> What would be best practices in this regard? And would setting up and maintaining an open-access database be a realistic prospect?
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As an example, consider the question of the (non-)existence of $n$-body choreographies when allowing the bodies to have different masses and different time-lags (see ["$n$-body choreographies" by Montgomery](http://dx.doi.org/10.4249/scholarpedia.10666) for background as of 2013, and [Minton's fine applet](http://gminton.org/choreo.html) for the type of numerical searches that one could try to adapt). I'd be interested to know what has been already attempted by others. I could ask experts, but it may well overlook work by other experts and by Ph.D. students.



Reporting inconclusive experimental searches
An easy and reliable way to share code is via [Zenodo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenodo) --- works much like arXiv, you get a DOI, can update your files, and it's free. We use it regularly to document computer simulations in physics, I imagine computational mathematics is not that different.


Note that Zenodo explicitly welcomes both positive and negative results.


