This is a tutorial that documents GiNaC @value{VERSION}, an open
framework for symbolic computation within the C++ programming language.
-Copyright (C) 1999-2002 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
+Copyright (C) 1999-2003 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
@page
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
-Copyright @copyright{} 1999-2002 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
+Copyright @copyright{} 1999-2003 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
@sp 2
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice
@section License
The GiNaC framework for symbolic computation within the C++ programming
-language is Copyright @copyright{} 1999-2002 Johannes Gutenberg
+language is Copyright @copyright{} 1999-2003 Johannes Gutenberg
University Mainz, Germany.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
@menu
* Expressions:: The fundamental GiNaC class.
-* The Class Hierarchy:: Overview of GiNaC's classes.
+* Automatic evaluation:: Evaluation and canonicalization.
* Error handling:: How the library reports errors.
+* The Class Hierarchy:: Overview of GiNaC's classes.
* Symbols:: Symbolic objects.
* Numbers:: Numerical objects.
* Constants:: Pre-defined constants.
-* Fundamental containers:: The power, add and mul classes.
+* Fundamental containers:: Sums, products and powers.
* Lists:: Lists of expressions.
* Mathematical functions:: Mathematical functions.
* Relations:: Equality, Inequality and all that.
@end menu
-@node Expressions, The Class Hierarchy, Basic Concepts, Basic Concepts
+@node Expressions, Automatic evaluation, Basic Concepts, Basic Concepts
@c node-name, next, previous, up
@section Expressions
@cindex expression (class @code{ex})
@code{ex}.
-@node The Class Hierarchy, Error handling, Expressions, Basic Concepts
+@node Automatic evaluation, Error handling, Expressions, Basic Concepts
+@c node-name, next, previous, up
+@section Automatic evaluation and canonicalization of expressions
+@cindex evaluation
+
+GiNaC performs some automatic transformations on expressions, to simplify
+them and put them into a canonical form. Some examples:
+
+@example
+ex MyEx1 = 2*x - 1 + x; // 3*x-1
+ex MyEx2 = x - x; // 0
+ex MyEx3 = cos(2*Pi); // 1
+ex MyEx4 = x*y/x; // y
+@end example
+
+This behavior is usually referred to as @dfn{automatic} or @dfn{anonymous
+evaluation}. GiNaC only performs transformations that are
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+at most of complexity @math{O(n log n)}
+@item
+algebraically correct, possibly except for a set of measure zero (e.g.
+@math{x/x} is transformed to @math{1} although this is incorrect for @math{x=0})
+@end itemize
+
+There are two types of automatic transformations in GiNaC that may not
+behave in an entirely obvious way at first glance:
+
+@itemize
+@item
+The terms of sums and products (and some other things like the arguments of
+symmetric functions, the indices of symmetric tensors etc.) are re-ordered
+into a canonical form that is deterministic, but not lexicographical or in
+any other way easily guessable (it almost always depends on the number and
+order of the symbols you define). However, constructing the same expression
+twice, either implicitly or explicitly, will always result in the same
+canonical form.
+@item
+Expressions of the form 'number times sum' are automatically expanded (this
+has to do with GiNaC's internal representation of sums and products). For
+example
+@example
+ex MyEx5 = 2*(x + y); // 2*x+2*y
+ex MyEx6 = z*(x + y); // z*(x+y)
+@end example
+@end itemize
+
+The general rule is that when you construct expressions, GiNaC automatically
+creates them in canonical form, which might differ from the form you typed in
+your program. This may create some awkward looking output (@samp{-y+x} instead
+of @samp{y-x}) but allows for more efficient operation and usually yields
+some immediate simplifications.
+
+@cindex @code{eval()}
+Internally, the anonymous evaluator in GiNaC is implemented by the methods
+
+@example
+ex ex::eval(int level = 0) const;
+ex basic::eval(int level = 0) const;
+@end example
+
+but unless you are extending GiNaC with your own classes or functions, there
+should never be any reason to call them explicitly. All GiNaC methods that
+transform expressions, like @code{subs()} or @code{normal()}, automatically
+re-evaluate their results.
+
+
+@node Error handling, The Class Hierarchy, Automatic evaluation, Basic Concepts
+@c node-name, next, previous, up
+@section Error handling
+@cindex exceptions
+@cindex @code{pole_error} (class)
+
+GiNaC reports run-time errors by throwing C++ exceptions. All exceptions
+generated by GiNaC are subclassed from the standard @code{exception} class
+defined in the @file{<stdexcept>} header. In addition to the predefined
+@code{logic_error}, @code{domain_error}, @code{out_of_range},
+@code{invalid_argument}, @code{runtime_error}, @code{range_error} and
+@code{overflow_error} types, GiNaC also defines a @code{pole_error}
+exception that gets thrown when trying to evaluate a mathematical function
+at a singularity.
+
+The @code{pole_error} class has a member function
+
+@example
+int pole_error::degree(void) const;
+@end example
+
+that returns the order of the singularity (or 0 when the pole is
+logarithmic or the order is undefined).
+
+When using GiNaC it is useful to arrange for exceptions to be catched in
+the main program even if you don't want to do any special error handling.
+Otherwise whenever an error occurs in GiNaC, it will be delegated to the
+default exception handler of your C++ compiler's run-time system which
+usually only aborts the program without giving any information what went
+wrong.
+
+Here is an example for a @code{main()} function that catches and prints
+exceptions generated by GiNaC:
+
+@example
+#include <iostream>
+#include <stdexcept>
+#include <ginac/ginac.h>
+using namespace std;
+using namespace GiNaC;
+
+int main(void)
+@{
+ try @{
+ ...
+ // code using GiNaC
+ ...
+ @} catch (exception &p) @{
+ cerr << p.what() << endl;
+ return 1;
+ @}
+ return 0;
+@}
+@end example
+
+
+@node The Class Hierarchy, Symbols, Error handling, Basic Concepts
@c node-name, next, previous, up
@section The Class Hierarchy
@cindex container
@cindex atom
-To get an idea about what kinds of symbolic composits may be built we
+To get an idea about what kinds of symbolic composites may be built we
have a look at the most important classes in the class hierarchy and
some of the relations among the classes:
@end cartouche
-@node Error handling, Symbols, The Class Hierarchy, Basic Concepts
-@c node-name, next, previous, up
-@section Error handling
-@cindex exceptions
-@cindex @code{pole_error} (class)
-
-GiNaC reports run-time errors by throwing C++ exceptions. All exceptions
-generated by GiNaC are subclassed from the standard @code{exception} class
-defined in the @file{<stdexcept>} header. In addition to the predefined
-@code{logic_error}, @code{domain_error}, @code{out_of_range},
-@code{invalid_argument}, @code{runtime_error}, @code{range_error} and
-@code{overflow_error} types, GiNaC also defines a @code{pole_error}
-exception that gets thrown when trying to evaluate a mathematical function
-at a singularity.
-
-The @code{pole_error} class has a member function
-
-@example
-int pole_error::degree(void) const;
-@end example
-
-that returns the order of the singularity (or 0 when the pole is
-logarithmic or the order is undefined).
-
-When using GiNaC it is useful to arrange for exceptions to be catched in
-the main program even if you don't want to do any special error handling.
-Otherwise whenever an error occurs in GiNaC, it will be delegated to the
-default exception handler of your C++ compiler's run-time system which
-usually only aborts the program without giving any information what went
-wrong.
-
-Here is an example for a @code{main()} function that catches and prints
-exceptions generated by GiNaC:
-
-@example
-#include <iostream>
-#include <stdexcept>
-#include <ginac/ginac.h>
-using namespace std;
-using namespace GiNaC;
-
-int main(void)
-@{
- try @{
- ...
- // code using GiNaC
- ...
- @} catch (exception &p) @{
- cerr << p.what() << endl;
- return 1;
- @}
- return 0;
-@}
-@end example
-
-
-@node Symbols, Numbers, Error handling, Basic Concepts
+@node Symbols, Numbers, The Class Hierarchy, Basic Concepts
@c node-name, next, previous, up
@section Symbols
@cindex @code{symbol} (class)
For storing numerical things, GiNaC uses Bruno Haible's library CLN.
The classes therein serve as foundation classes for GiNaC. CLN stands
for Class Library for Numbers or alternatively for Common Lisp Numbers.
-In order to find out more about CLN's internals the reader is refered to
+In order to find out more about CLN's internals, the reader is referred to
the documentation of that library. @inforef{Introduction, , cln}, for
more information. Suffice to say that it is by itself build on top of
another library, the GNU Multiple Precision library GMP, which is an
that in both cases you got a couple of extra digits. This is because
numbers are internally stored by CLN as chunks of binary digits in order
to match your machine's word size and to not waste precision. Thus, on
-architectures with differnt word size, the above output might even
+architectures with different word size, the above output might even
differ with regard to actually computed digits.
It should be clear that objects of class @code{numeric} should be used
@node Fundamental containers, Lists, Constants, Basic Concepts
@c node-name, next, previous, up
-@section Fundamental containers: the @code{power}, @code{add} and @code{mul} classes
+@section Sums, products and powers
@cindex polynomial
@cindex @code{add}
@cindex @code{mul}
@cindex @code{power}
-Simple polynomial expressions are written down in GiNaC pretty much like
+Simple rational expressions are written down in GiNaC pretty much like
in other CAS or like expressions involving numerical variables in C.
The necessary operators @code{+}, @code{-}, @code{*} and @code{/} have
been overloaded to achieve this goal. When you run the following
and safe simplifications are carried out like transforming
@code{3*x+4-x} to @code{2*x+4}.
-The general rule is that when you construct such objects, GiNaC
-automatically creates them in canonical form, which might differ from
-the form you typed in your program. This allows for rapid comparison of
-expressions, since after all @code{a-a} is simply zero. Note, that the
-canonical form is not necessarily lexicographical ordering or in any way
-easily guessable. It is only guaranteed that constructing the same
-expression twice, either implicitly or explicitly, results in the same
-canonical form.
-
@node Lists, Mathematical functions, Fundamental containers, Basic Concepts
@c node-name, next, previous, up
are also valid patterns.
@end itemize
+@subsection Matching expressions
@cindex @code{match()}
The most basic application of patterns is to check whether an expression
matches a given pattern. This is done by the function
@{$0==x^2@}
@end example
+@subsection Matching parts of expressions
@cindex @code{has()}
A more general way to look for patterns in expressions is provided by the
member function
@end example
works a bit like @code{has()} but it doesn't stop upon finding the first
-match. Instead, it appends all found matches to the specified list. If there
-are multiple occurrences of the same expression, it is entered only once to
-the list. @code{find()} returns false if no matches were found (in
+match. Instead, it inserts all found matches into the specified list. If
+there are multiple occurrences of the same expression, it is entered only
+once to the list. @code{find()} returns false if no matches were found (in
@command{ginsh}, it returns an empty list):
@example
@{sin(y),sin(x)@}
@end example
+@subsection Substituting expressions
@cindex @code{subs()}
Probably the most useful application of patterns is to use them for
substituting expressions with the @code{subs()} method. Wildcards can be
The above example will produce (note the @code{x^2} being converted to @code{x*x}):
@example
-float f = (3.000000e+00/2.000000e+00)*(x*x)+4.500000e+00;
-double d = (3.000000e+00/2.000000e+00)*(x*x)+4.500000e+00;
-cl_N n = (cln::cl_F("3.0")/cln::cl_F("2.0"))*(x*x)+cln::cl_F("4.5");
+float f = (3.0/2.0)*(x*x)+4.500000e+00;
+double d = (3.0/2.0)*(x*x)+4.5000000000000000e+00;
+cl_N n = cln::cl_RA("3/2")*(x*x)+cln::cl_F("4.5_17");
@end example
The @code{print_context} type @code{print_tree} provides a dump of the
@subsection Automatic evaluation
-@cindex @code{hold()}
-@cindex @code{eval()}
@cindex evaluation
+@cindex @code{eval()}
+@cindex @code{hold()}
When dealing with objects that are just a little more complicated than the
simple string objects we have implemented, chances are that you will want to
have some automatic simplifications or canonicalizations performed on them.
@end example
This @file{Makefile.am}, says that we are building a single executable,
-from a single sourcefile @file{simple.cpp}. Since every program
+from a single source file @file{simple.cpp}. Since every program
we are building uses GiNaC we simply added the GiNaC options
to @env{$LIBS} and @env{$CPPFLAGS}, but in other circumstances, we might
want to specify them on a per-program basis: for instance by
git://www.ginac.de / ginac.git / blobdiff