Re: Interface definition for PARI/GP

[Ilya Zakharevich <ilya@math.ohio-state.edu>]

On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 10:45:05PM +0200, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > Again, I do not follow.  Only init.c needs to be changed.  (Supposing
> > that what you want is changing PARI function to reference a different
> > C function - with possibly different signature.)  Do you mean help
> > strings again?

> Yes! If you forget to add an help string, all the online help is shifted! Also
> there is the section number stuff.

What about a section number?  How you proposal helps with a section
number bookkeeping?  Do yo want to keep different sections in
different mail-format files?

> > Such moving may break the "table sanity check" features of the latest
> > versions of Math::Pari.  Please announce such moving...
> Would it be OK src/language/init.c contains *only* the functions_basic array ?
> It would be difficult to keep src/language/init.c in CVS and updating it 
> automatically by a script, so we need to put the table in its own file.

This is fine, especially if you send patches to Math::PariBuild too.  ;-)

> One benefit of the new system, once you update your program to use it 
> directly, is that you do not depend of the source filenames, which is not
> considered a part of the interface.

> [ We can shuffle all PARI 2.1 source files
> and still claim be fully PARI 2.1 compatible.] On the other hand, this
> new system will be part of the interface.

How?  You probably omit something like "the tables are installed with
Pari in a well-defined location"?  Or are they compiled-in, and there
is an interface to query them?

> > > Type: gen
> > 
> > Is this to replace v and l tokens?
> 
> Not decided yet.

Then what does it *mean*?

Ilya