Copyright 1991, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2007 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 modify

it under the terms of either:

  * the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free

    Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your

    option) any later version.

or

  * the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software

    Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any

    later version.

or both in parallel, as here.

The GNU MP 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 General Public License

for more details.

You should have received copies of the GNU General Public License and the

GNU Lesser General Public License along with the GNU MP Library.  If not,

see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

			THE GNU MP LIBRARY

GNU MP 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.

GNU MP 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).

GNU MP is believed to be faster than any other similar library.  Its advantage

increases with operand sizes for certain operations, since GNU MP in many

cases has asymptotically faster algorithms.

GNU MP is free software and may be freely copied on the terms contained in the

files COPYING* (see the manual for information on which license(s) applies to

which components of GNU MP).

			OVERVIEW OF GNU MP

There are four classes of functions in GNU MP.

 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.

For more information on how to use GNU MP, please refer to the documentation.

It is composed from the file doc/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 GNU MP web pages at https://gmplib.org/, under

"Status of the current release".  There will be patches for all known serious

bugs there.

Report bugs to gmp-bugs@gmplib.org.  What information is needed in a useful bug

report is described in the manual.  The same address can be used for suggesting

modifications and enhancements.

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