gp.1

.TH GP 1 "11 September 2017"
.SH NAME
gp \- The PARI calculator
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B gp
.RB [ -s
.IR stacksize ]
.RB [ -p
.IR primelimit ]
.RB [ --emacs ]
.RB [ -f | --fast ]
.RB [ -q | --quiet ]
.RB [ -D | --default
.IR key=val ]
.RB [ --help ]
.RB [ --test ]
.RB [ --texmacs ]
.RB [ --version ]
.RB [ --version-short ]
[ file1 file2 ...]

.SH DESCRIPTION
Invokes the PARI-GP calculator
\&\fBgp\fR; gp is an advanced programmable calculator, specializing in number
theory, which computes symbolically as long as possible, numerically where
needed, and contains a wealth of arithmetic functions: factorizations,
elliptic curves, Galois theory, class field theory, modular forms, etc.
Commands, written in the GP scripting language, are input interactively or
loaded from files.

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

.SH OPTIONS
Command line options are available in both short form (-f) and POSIX-like
(--fast). Numeric arguments can be followed by a modifier
.B k
,
.B M
or
.B G
at the user's convenience; in that case the argument is multiplied by 10^3,
10^6, or 10^9 respectively.

.TP
.B \-f, \--fast
Fast start (or factory settings). Do not read
.B .gprc
(see below) upon startup.
.TP
.B \-p limit
[DEPRECATED]
Upon startup, gp computes a table of small primes used in
number-theoretic applications. If
.I 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.
.TP
.B \-q, \--quiet
Quiet mode. Do not print headers or history numbers and do not say goodbye.

.TP
.B \-D, \--default key=val
performs
.BR default(key,
.BR val) ";"
on startup, overriding values from the
.B 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

.TP
.B \-s limit
Size of gp internal stack allocated on startup. When gp runs out of space, it
interrupts the current computation and raises a
.BI "stack overflow"
exception. If this occurs frequently, start with a bigger stack. The stack
size can also be
increased from within gp, using
.BR default(parisize, limit) ";"
it is convenient to set
.B parisize
from your
.B .gprc
to that the setting is persistent across sessions; a value of 80MB is sensible.
We strongly advise to also set
.B parisizemax
to a positive, much larger, value in your
.B .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
.B smaller
stack may be more efficient due to better data locality. Finally,
.B threadsize
and
.B threadsizemax
play analogous roles in the parallel version of gp.

.TP
.B \--emacs
gp can be run in an
.I Emacs
shell (see GP User's manual for details). This flag is then required for
smooth interaction with the
.I 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
.I Emacs
session.
.TP
.B \--help
print a summary of available command-line options.
.TP
.B \--test
run gp in test mode: suppress printing of history numbers and wrap long
output lines (to get readable diff output). For benches only.
.TP
.B \--texmacs
gp can be run from a
.I TeXmacs
frontend. This flag is set by TeXmacs, to enable special purpose
communication channels. Do not set it yourself.

.TP
.B \--version
output version info (banner) then exit.

.TP
.B \--version-short
output version number then exit.

.SH USE
.TP
.B ?
to get online help.
.TP
.B ??
to get extended online help (more precisely, to call the external help
program,
.B gphelp
by default)
.TP
.B quit
(or \\q), or
.B EOF
(Ctrl-D) to quit
.BR gp .
.PP
The following works only when gp was linked with GNU
.IR readline
library:
.TP
arrow keys
for editing and viewing the input history.
.TP
.B TAB
 for automatic completion

.SH MANUALS
The following material is included in the standard distribution (originally
in TeX format) and can also be downloaded at
.RS
.I http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/doc.html
.RE
or viewed online at
.RS
.I http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/dochtml/html/
.RE

.TP
.I The User's Guide to PARI/GP
(users.dvi)
.TP
.I The User's Guide to the PARI library
(library.dvi)
.TP
.I The Developer's Guide to the PARI library
(develop.dvi)
.TP
.I PARI/GP, a tutorial
(tutorial.dvi)
.TP
.I PARI/GP reference cards
(refcard*.dvi)

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

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

.TP
.I <psfile>
a file used to dump PostScript drawings; default:
.B pari.ps

.TP
.I <histfile>
a file where gp will keep a history of all input commands (you need to set
the
.B histfile
default in the gprc file)

.TP
.I gphelp
default external help program (as above)
.TP
.I *.gp
GP programs

.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.I $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
.B datadir.

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

.TP
.I $GP_POSTSCRIPT_VIEWER
an application able to display PostScript files, used by the
.I 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.)

.TP
.I $GP_SVG_VIEWER
an application able to display SVG images files, used by the
.I 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.)

.TP
.I $GPHELP
name of the external help program invoked by ?? and ??? shortcuts.

.TP
.I $GPTMPDIR
name of the directory where temporary files will be generated.

.SH HOME PAGE
PARI's home page resides at
.RS
.I http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/
.RE

.SH MAILING LISTS
There are a number of mailing lists devoted to the PARI/GP package, and most
feedback should be directed to those. See
.RS
.I http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/lists.html
.RE
for details. The most important ones are:

.PP
-
.B pari-announce
(moderated): for us to announce major version changes.
.PP
-
.B pari-dev:
for everything related to the development of PARI, including
suggestions, technical questions, bug reports or patch submissions.

.PP
-
.B 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

.PP
   [email protected]
.PP
   [email protected]
.PP
   [email protected]

.SH BUG REPORTS
Bugs should be submitted online to our Bug Tracking System, available from
PARI's home page, or directly from the URL
.RS
.I http://pari.math.u-bordeaux.fr/Bugs/
.RE
Further instructions can be found on that page.

.SH TRIVIA
Despite the leading G, GP has nothing to do with GNU. The first version was
originally called GPC, for Great Programmable Calculator. When people started
calling it "the GPC Calculator", the trailing C was dropped.

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:
.B 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.

.SH AUTHORS
PARI was originally written by Christian Batut, Dominique Bernardi, Henri
Cohen, and Michel Olivier in Laboratoire A2X (Universite Bordeaux I, France),
and was maintained by Henri Cohen up to version 1.39.15 (1995), and by Karim
Belabas since then.

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.

.SH SEE ALSO
.IR gap (1),
.IR gphelp (1),
.IR perl (1),
.IR readline (3),
.IR sage (1),
.IR tex (1),
.IR texmacs (1),

.SH COPYING

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation.

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.