Math::Symbolic version 0.130 ============================ Math::Symbolic is intended to offer symbolic calculation capabilities to the Perl programmer without using external (and commercial) libraries and/or applications. Unless, however, some interested and knowledgable developers turn up to participate in the development, the library will be severely limited by my experience in the area. Symbolic calculations are an active field of research in CS. Some information on the state of things: The interface has been improving steadily. Nonetheless, it'll take some more polishing. Since version 0.08, a parser for algebraic expressions is integrated into Math::Symbolic. Since version 0.106, the parser also parses unknown variables, and since version 0.109, it parses variable signatures. Since version 0.102, there is an overloaded interface for arithmetic operators and some overloadable functions and contexts. The interface is not optimally documented. Please also refer to the tests and example programs. Partial derivatives of logarithms, exponentiations, arithmetic terms (*,/,+,- and unary minus as well as variables and constants), trigonometric functions, inverse trigonometric functions, hyperbolic functions, and area hyperbolic functions work rather well - albeit slowly. Simplification of algebraic terms is severely limited at this time and its interface has been significantly refactored in version 0.111. Since then, all method calls that start with 'is_', 'test_', 'apply_', 'mod_', 'contains_', or 'to_' are delegated to a special namespace that is populated from user-defined modules adding reasonably simple means of extension. Additionally, all builtin tree-modifying and tree-testing methods are being moved to the aforementioned namespace. Version 0.116 of this module has been used in conjunction with Math::Complex to offer symbolic calculation with complex numbers. Please have a look at the enclosed example scripts. Version 0.119 introduced some calculus related subroutines including the symbolic computation of Taylor Polynomials and the associated errors from Math::Symbolic trees. Vectorial calculus including gradients, divergence, rotation, Jacobi- and Hesse matrices, Wronskian Determinants, directional derivatives, total differentials, and two dimensional Taylor Polynomials is supported by the Math::Symbolic::VectorCalculus module which is part of the distribution but not loaded by default. Similarily, algebra related functions like determinants are offered by Math::Symbolic::MiscAlgebra. Since version 0.122, Math::Symbolic trees can be dumped as LaTeX via the to_latex() method. INSTALLATION To install this module type the following: perl Makefile.PL make make test make install DEPENDENCIES This module requires these other modules and libraries: Test::More Exporter Parse::RecDescent SEE ALSO Current versions of this module may be found on http://steffen-mueller.net or CPAN. The development takes place on Sourceforge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/math-symbolic Please send your suggestions, inquiries, and feedback to math-symbolic-support at lists dot sourceforge dot net. Feel free to subscribe to the developers mailing list: math-symbolic-develop at lists dot sourceforge dot net COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE Copyright (C) 2003-2004 Steffen Mueller This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. CONTRIBUTIONS Steffen Müller, symbolic-module at steffen-mueller dot net Stray Toaster, mwk at users dot sourceforge dot net Oliver Ebenhöh