accessing p-adic digits

[Fernando Gouvea <fqgouvea@colby.edu>]

When I create a p-adic number like

(12:31) gp > a=1/42+O(5^12)
%6 = 3 + 2*5^3 + 4*5^4 + 4*5^5 + 2*5^6 + 2*5^9 + 4*5^10 + 4*5^11 + O(5^12)

Is there an easy way to access the sequence of digits, [3,0,0,2,4,4,2,0,0,2,4,4]? I would like to display a p-adic expansion as a "long base-p enumber", so that 1/42 = ...4420024420023 in base 5.

Thanks,

Fernando

-- 
=============================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea         http://www.colby.edu/~fqgouvea
Carter Professor of Mathematics
Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
Colby College              
5836 Mayflower Hill        
Waterville, ME 04901       

A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work
by being declared to work.
  -- Anatol Holt