NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

If present at the end of the command line, files 'file1', 'file2', ... are loaded on startup; they must be written in the GP language.

OPTIONS

-f, --fast

Fast start (or factory settings). Do not read .gprc (see below) upon startup.

-p limit

[DEPRECATED] Upon startup, gp computes a table of small primes used in number-theoretic applications. If primelimit is set, the table include primes up to that bound instead of the default (= 500000). It is now mostly useless to change this value.

-q, --quiet

Quiet mode. Do not print headers or history numbers and do not say goodbye.

-D, --default key=val

performs default(key, val); on startup, overriding values from the gprc preferences file. 'val' must be a constant value and is not allowed to involve any computation (e.g. 1+1 is forbidden). Any number of such default-setting statements may appear on the command line. A key may be set multiple times, the last setting taking precedence

-s limit

Size of gp internal stack allocated on startup. When gp runs out of space, it interrupts the current computation and raises a stack overflow exception. If this occurs frequently, start with a bigger stack. The stack size can also be increased from within gp, using default(parisize,limit); it is convenient to set parisize from your .gprc to that the setting is persistent across sessions; a value of 80MB is sensible. We strongly advise to also set parisizemax to a positive, much larger, value in your .gprc (about what you believe your machine can stand, usually half the available RAM or so): this strives to fit computation in the parisize range but allows it to temporarily go beyond it (up to parisizemax). Note that computations with a smaller stack may be more efficient due to better data locality. Finally, threadsize and threadsizemax play analogous roles in the parallel version of gp.

--emacs

gp can be run in an Emacs shell (see GP User's manual for details). This flag is then required for smooth interaction with the PariEmacs package (pari.el). It is set automatically by the pari.el package, and will produce display oddities if you set it outside of an Emacs session.

--help

print a summary of available command-line options.

--test

run gp in test mode: suppress printing of history numbers and wrap long output lines (to get readable diff output). For benches only.

--texmacs

gp can be run from a TeXmacs frontend. This flag is set by TeXmacs, to enable special purpose communication channels. Do not set it yourself.

--version

output version info (banner) then exit.

--version-short

output version number then exit.

USE

?

to get online help.

??

to get extended online help (more precisely, to call the external help program, gphelp by default)

quit

(or \q), or EOF (Ctrl-D) to quit gp.

The following works only when gp was linked with GNU readline library:

arrow keys

for editing and viewing the input history.

TAB

for automatic completion

MANUALS

The User's Guide to PARI/GP

(users.dvi)

The User's Guide to the PARI library

(library.dvi)

The Developer's Guide to the PARI library

(develop.dvi)

PARI/GP, a tutorial

(tutorial.dvi)

PARI/GP reference cards

(refcard*.dvi)

FILES

gp

main executable

$HOME/.gprc

(or $GPRC if set) user preference file, read at beginning of execution by each gp shell. A default gprc gprc.dft is provided with the distribution. If this file cannot be found, /etc/gprc is checked instead.

<logfile>

a file used to log in all commands and results; default: pari.log (you need to set the log default in your gprc or interactively)

<psfile>

a file used to dump PostScript drawings; default: pari.ps

<histfile>

a file where gp will keep a history of all input commands (you need to set the histfile default in the gprc file)

gphelp

default external help program (as above)

*.gp

GP programs

ENVIRONMENT

$GPRC

place to look for the user's preference file (gprc); if the file does not exist, we then check in $HOME/.gprc, /etc/gprc, and finally for a file named 'gprc' in PARI's datadir.

$GP_DATA_DIR

directory containing data installed by optional PARI packages. For example, the Galois resolvents files in directory galdata/ needed by the polgalois function, in degrees 8 to 11; or the modular polynomials in seadata/ used by the ellap function for large base fields. This environment variable overrides PARI's 'datadir', defined at Configure time.

$GP_POSTSCRIPT_VIEWER

an application able to display PostScript files, used by the plotps graphic engine. This engine is a fallback used to output hi-res plots even when no compatible graphical library was available on your platform at Configure time. (Dumps the graph to a temporary file, then open the file.)

$GP_SVG_VIEWER

an application able to display SVG images files, used by the plotsvg graphic engine. This engine is a fallback used to output hi-res plots even when no compatible graphical library was available on your platform at Configure time. (Dumps the graph to a temporary file, then open the file.)

$GPHELP

name of the external help program invoked by ?? and ??? shortcuts.

$GPTMPDIR

name of the directory where temporary files will be generated.

HOME PAGE

MAILING LISTS

- pari-announce (moderated): for us to announce major version changes.

- pari-dev: for everything related to the development of PARI, including suggestions, technical questions, bug reports or patch submissions.

- pari-users: for discuss about everything else, in particular ask for help.

To subscribe, send empty messages with a Subject: containing the word "subscribe" respectively to

pari-announce-request@pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr

pari-users-request@pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr

pari-dev-request@pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr

BUG REPORTS

TRIVIA

PARI has nothing to do with the French capital. The name is a pun about the project's early stages when the authors started to implement a library for "Pascal ARIthmetic" in the PASCAL programming language. They quickly switched to C.

For the benefit of non-native French speakers, here's a slightly expanded explanation: Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a famous French mathematician and philosopher who was one of the founders of probability and devised one of the first "arithmetic machines". He once proposed the following "proof" of the existence of God for the unbelievers: whether He exists or not I lose nothing by believing in Him, whereas if He does and I misbehave... This is the so-called "pari de Pascal" (Pascal's Wager).

Note that PARI also means "fairy" in Persian.

AUTHORS

A great number of people have contributed to the successive improvements which eventually resulted in the present version. See the AUTHORS file in the distribution.

SEE ALSO

COPYING

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.