mpir/README

Copyright 1991, 1996, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Copyright 2008, 2009 William Hart

This file is part of the MPIR Library.

The MPIR Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your
option) any later version.

The MPIR Library 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 Lesser General Public
License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
along with the MPIR Library; see the file COPYING.LIB.  If not, write to
the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110-1301, USA.






			THE MPIR LIBRARY


MPIR is a library for arbitrary precision arithmetic, operating on signed
integers, rational numbers, and floating point numbers.  It has a rich set of
functions, and the functions have a regular interface.

MPIR is designed to be as fast as possible, both for small operands and huge
operands.  The speed is achieved by using fullwords as the basic arithmetic
type, by using fast algorithms, with carefully optimized assembly code for the
most common inner loops for lots of CPUs, and by a general emphasis on speed
(instead of simplicity or elegance).

MPIR is believed to be faster than any other similar library.  Its advantage
increases with operand sizes for certain operations, since MPIR in many
cases has asymptotically faster algorithms.

MPIR is free software and may be freely copied on the terms contained in the
files COPYING.LIB and COPYING (most of MPIR is under the former, some under
the latter).



			OVERVIEW OF MPIR

There are five classes of functions in MPIR.

 1. Signed integer arithmetic functions (mpz).  These functions are intended
    to 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 of
    functions necessary for basic rational arithmetics.  The associated type
    is `mpq_t'.

 3. Floating-point arithmetic functions (mpf).  If the C type `double'
    doesn't give enough precision for your application, declare your
    variables 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 the
    mpn class.  No memory management is performed.  The caller must ensure
    enough space is available for the results.  The set of functions is not
    regular, nor is the calling interface.  These functions accept input
    arguments in the form of pairs consisting of a pointer to the least
    significant 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 these
    low-level functions.

 5. Berkeley MP compatible functions.

    To use these functions, include the file "mp.h".  You can test if you are
    using the GNU version by testing if the symbol __GNU_MP__ is defined.

For more information on how to use MPIR, please refer to the documentation.
It is composed from the file gmp.texi, and can be displayed on the screen or
printed.  How to do that, as well how to build the library, is described in
the INSTALL file in this directory.



			REPORTING BUGS

If you find a bug in the library, please make sure to tell us about it!

You should first check the MPIR web pages at http://www.mpir.org/. There will 
be patches for all known serious bugs there.

Report bugs to our development list: http://groups.google.com/group/mpir-devel.  
What information is needed in a good bug report is described in the manual.  
The same address can be used for suggesting modifications and enhancements.




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