Copyright 1991, 1996, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.This file is part of the GNU MP Library.The GNU MP Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modifyit under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published bythe Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at youroption) any later version.The GNU MP Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, butWITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITYor FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General PublicLicense for more details.You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public Licensealong with the GNU MP Library; see the file COPYING.LIB. If not, write tothe Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA02110-1301, USA.THE GNU MP LIBRARYGNU MP is a library for arbitrary precision arithmetic, operating on signedintegers, rational numbers, and floating point numbers. It has a rich set offunctions, and the functions have a regular interface.GNU MP is designed to be as fast as possible, both for small operands and hugeoperands. The speed is achieved by using fullwords as the basic arithmetictype, by using fast algorithms, with carefully optimized assembly code for themost common inner loops for lots of CPUs, and by a general emphasis on speed(instead of simplicity or elegance).GNU MP is believed to be faster than any other similar library. Its advantageincreases with operand sizes for certain operations, since GNU MP in manycases has asymptotically faster algorithms.GNU MP is free software and may be freely copied on the terms contained in thefiles COPYING.LIB and COPYING (most of GNU MP is under the former, some underthe latter).OVERVIEW OF GNU MPThere are five classes of functions in GNU MP.1. Signed integer arithmetic functions (mpz). These functions are intendedto be easy to use, with their regular interface. The associated type is`mpz_t'.2. Rational arithmetic functions (mpq). For now, just a small set offunctions necessary for basic rational arithmetics. The associated typeis `mpq_t'.3. Floating-point arithmetic functions (mpf). If the C type `double'doesn't give enough precision for your application, declare yourvariables as `mpf_t' instead, set the precision to any number desired,and call the functions in the mpf class for the arithmetic operations.4. Positive-integer, hard-to-use, very low overhead functions are in thempn class. No memory management is performed. The caller must ensureenough space is available for the results. The set of functions is notregular, nor is the calling interface. These functions accept inputarguments in the form of pairs consisting of a pointer to the leastsignificant word, and an integral size telling how many limbs (= words)the pointer points to.Almost all calculations, in the entire package, are made by calling theselow-level functions.5. Berkeley MP compatible functions.To use these functions, include the file "mp.h". You can test if you areusing the GNU version by testing if the symbol __GNU_MP__ is defined.For more information on how to use GNU MP, please refer to the documentation.It is composed from the file gmp.texi, and can be displayed on the screen orprinted. How to do that, as well how to build the library, is described inthe INSTALL file in this directory.REPORTING BUGSIf you find a bug in the library, please make sure to tell us about it!You should first check the GNU MP web pages at http://www.swox.com/gmp/,under "Status of the current release". There will be patches for all knownserious bugs there.Report bugs to bug-gmp@gnu.org. What information is needed in a good bugreport is described in the manual. The same address can be used forsuggesting modifications and enhancements.----------------Local variables:mode: textfill-column: 78End: