For the ODE to be exact, we require that
, which we'll verify is not the case here.
So we distribute an integrating factor
across both sides of the ODE to get
Now for the ODE to be exact, we require
, which in turn means
Suppose
. Then substituting everything into the PDE above, we have
so that our integrating factor is
. Our ODE is now
Renaming
and
to our current coefficients, we end up with partial derivatives
as desired, so our new ODE is indeed exact.
Next, we're looking for a solution of the form
. By the chain rule, we have
Differentiating with respect to
yields
Thus the solution to the ODE is