chap1.txt

  
  1 Introduction and installation
  
  
  1.1 Brief description of the package
  
  The  GAP package OpenMath provides an OpenMath phrasebook for GAP: it allows
  GAP  users to import and export mathematical objects encoded in OpenMath for
  the purpose of exchanging them with other OpenMath-enabled applications.
  
  This manual describes:
  
      how to view OpenMath representation of an object;
  
      how  to read OpenMath object from stream or write it to stream for the
        purposes of exchange with another OpenMath-enabled application;
  
      how to find which objects can be converted to/from OpenMath using this
        package;
  
      how  to  extend  the  package  to  support  private  OpenMath  content
        dictionaries.
  
  For   the   detailed   information   about  OpenMath  standard  and  content
  dictionaries see the OpenMath homepage http://www.openmath.org.
  
  For  practical purposes, the OpenMath package will be most efficient if used
  in  conjunction  with  the  GAP  package  SCSCP  ([KL]) which implements the
  Symbolic   Computation   Software  Composability  protocol  ([FHKLR]).  This
  protocol  specifies  an  OpenMath-based  remote procedure call framework, in
  which  all  messages  (procedure  calls and returns of results of successful
  computation  or  error  messages)  are  encoded  in  OpenMath  using content
  dictionaries  scscp1  and  scscp2  ([FHKLLRa],  [FHKLLRb]).  Using the SCSCP
  package,   GAP   can   communicate   locally  or  remotely  with  any  other
  OpenMath-enabled  SCSCP-compliant  application which may be not only another
  computer algebra system but also another instance of the GAP system or even,
  for  example, an external C/C++ or Java application. Such communication will
  go  into  a  seamless  manner  with the GAP/OpenMath conversion going in the
  background.
  
  
  1.2 Installation of the package
  
  To  use  the  OpenMath  package it is required to install the GAPDoc package
  [LN] to use the help system and parse OpenMath objects in the XML format.
  
  To  install  the OpenMath package, unpack the archive and place the openmath
  directory  in  the  pkg  subdirectory  of your GAP4.4 installation. When you
  don't  have write access to the directory of your main GAP installation, you
  can  also install the package outside the GAP main directory by unpacking it
  inside  a  directory MYGAPDIR/pkg. Then to be able to load OpenMath you need
  to call GAP with the -l ";MYGAPDIR" option.
  
  When  the  OpenMath  package  is  installed, it may be loaded as shown below
  (possibly loading required packages at the same time):
  
    Example  
    
    gap> LoadPackage("openmath");
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Loading  OpenMath 11.4.0 (OpenMath functionality in GAP)
    by Marco Costantini,
       Alexander Konovalov (http://blogs.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/alexk/),
       Max Nicosia, and
       Andrew Solomon.
    Homepage: https://gap-packages.github.io/openmath
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    true