1Copyright 1991, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 2 3This file is part of the GNU MP Library. 4 5The GNU MP Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 6it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by 7the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your 8option) any later version. 9 10The GNU MP Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but 11WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY 12or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public 13License for more details. 14 15You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License 16along with the GNU MP Library. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 THE GNU MP LIBRARY 24 25 26GNU MP is a library for arbitrary precision arithmetic, operating on signed 27integers, rational numbers, and floating point numbers. It has a rich set of 28functions, and the functions have a regular interface. 29 30GNU MP is designed to be as fast as possible, both for small operands and huge 31operands. The speed is achieved by using fullwords as the basic arithmetic 32type, by using fast algorithms, with carefully optimized assembly code for the 33most common inner loops for lots of CPUs, and by a general emphasis on speed 34(instead of simplicity or elegance). 35 36GNU MP is believed to be faster than any other similar library. Its advantage 37increases with operand sizes for certain operations, since GNU MP in many 38cases has asymptotically faster algorithms. 39 40GNU MP is free software and may be freely copied on the terms contained in the 41files COPYING.LIB and COPYING (most of GNU MP is under the former, some under 42the latter). 43 44 45 46 OVERVIEW OF GNU MP 47 48There are five classes of functions in GNU MP. 49 50 1. Signed integer arithmetic functions (mpz). These functions are intended 51 to be easy to use, with their regular interface. The associated type is 52 `mpz_t'. 53 54 2. Rational arithmetic functions (mpq). For now, just a small set of 55 functions necessary for basic rational arithmetics. The associated type 56 is `mpq_t'. 57 58 3. Floating-point arithmetic functions (mpf). If the C type `double' 59 doesn't give enough precision for your application, declare your 60 variables as `mpf_t' instead, set the precision to any number desired, 61 and call the functions in the mpf class for the arithmetic operations. 62 63 4. Positive-integer, hard-to-use, very low overhead functions are in the 64 mpn class. No memory management is performed. The caller must ensure 65 enough space is available for the results. The set of functions is not 66 regular, nor is the calling interface. These functions accept input 67 arguments in the form of pairs consisting of a pointer to the least 68 significant word, and an integral size telling how many limbs (= words) 69 the pointer points to. 70 71 Almost all calculations, in the entire package, are made by calling these 72 low-level functions. 73 74 5. Berkeley MP compatible functions. 75 76 To use these functions, include the file "mp.h". You can test if you are 77 using the GNU version by testing if the symbol __GNU_MP__ is defined. 78 79For more information on how to use GNU MP, please refer to the documentation. 80It is composed from the file doc/gmp.texi, and can be displayed on the screen 81or printed. How to do that, as well how to build the library, is described in 82the INSTALL file in this directory. 83 84 85 86 REPORTING BUGS 87 88If you find a bug in the library, please make sure to tell us about it! 89 90You should first check the GNU MP web pages at http://gmplib.org/, under 91"Status of the current release". There will be patches for all known serious 92bugs there. 93 94Report bugs to gmp-bugs@gmplib.org. What information is needed in a useful bug 95report is described in the manual. The same address can be used for suggesting 96modifications and enhancements. 97 98 99 100 101---------------- 102Local variables: 103mode: text 104fill-column: 78 105End: 106