xref: /minix/games/factor/factor.6 (revision e39e890e)
1.\"	$NetBSD: factor.6,v 1.12 2010/05/15 21:22:39 joerg Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1993
4.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
5.\"
6.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
7.\" Landon Curt Noll.
8.\"
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10.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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14.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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33.\"	@(#)factor.6	8.1 (Berkeley) 5/31/93
34.\"
35.\"
36.\" By: Landon Curt Noll   chongo@toad.com,   ...!{sun,tolsoft}!hoptoad!chongo
37.\"
38.\"   chongo <for a good prime call: 391581 * 2^216193 - 1> /\oo/\
39.\"
40.Dd May 15, 2010
41.Dt FACTOR 6
42.Os
43.Sh NAME
44.Nm factor
45.Nd factor a number
46.Sh SYNOPSIS
47.Nm
48.Op Ar number ...
49.Sh DESCRIPTION
50The
51.Nm
52utility factors integers larger than 1.
53When a number is factored, it is printed, followed by a
54.Dq \&: ,
55and the list of
56.Pq prime
57factors on a single line.
58Factors are listed in ascending order, and are preceded by a space.
59If a factor divides a value more than once, it will be printed more than once.
60.Pp
61When
62.Nm
63is invoked with one or more arguments, each argument will be factored.
64.Pp
65When
66.Nm
67is invoked with no arguments,
68.Nm
69reads numbers, one per line, from standard input, until end of file or error.
70Leading white-space and empty lines are ignored.
71Numbers may be preceded by a single +.
72Integer less than 2 are rejected.
73Numbers are terminated by a non-digit character (such as a newline).
74After a number is read, it is factored.
75Input lines must not be longer than
76.Dv LINE_MAX \- 1
77(currently 2047) characters.
78.Pp
79By default,
80.Nm
81is compiled against the OpenSSL bignum implementation
82.Xr openssl_bn 3 ,
83which lets it handle arbitrarily large values.
84.Pq Note however that very large values can take a very long time to factor.
85If
86.Nm
87is compiled without OpenSSL it is limited to the maximum value of
88.Vt unsigned long .
89.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
90Out of range or invalid input results in
91an appropriate error message
92being written to standard error.
93.\".Sh BUGS
94.\".Nm
95.\"cannot handle the
96.\".Dq 10 most wanted
97.\"factor list.
98