Copyright notice: This is version 1.37 of PARI, (c) 1989-1992 by C. Batut, D. Bernardi, H. Cohen and M. Olivier. This software is intended as a service to the scientific community, but the authors cannot be held responsible for any consequences, either direct or indirect, which the use of this package may have. It can be freely copied and spread, as long as no files are modified, and that the whole package (source and manual), including this README file is included. The simplest way to compile the users manual is to "make" in the tex directory. For those already familiar with version 1.35 of Pari, read the text file Newin1.37 to see what has changed between 1.35 and 1.37. Some on-line help can be obtained (\c for the commands, and ?command for a one line description of the command; some commands are not documented at all in this on-line help e.g. % to get modulo, [,,,] to get vectors, [,,,;,,,;,,,;,,,] to get matrices etc...). Complete on-line help can be obtained by using GP in a GNUemacs buffer (see section 3.11 of the manual). The output routines by default print in "prettymatrix" format. Type \m if you want to be in "raw" format. The "prettyprint" format (command \p under gp see section 2.2.10) is not very nice and needs to be improved. Many bugs remain, known and unknown. Among the most notable known one is the bad treatment of power series in more than one variable. This may be corrected some time in the future. Evidently you will find bugs in PARI, some subtle, some not, and you may also consider it indispensable to have some extra tools available. We are constantly expanding the PARI library, but it takes time and work. In any case, we would appreciate correspondence; please be tolerant. We know many of the defects in PARI, so don't flame us. After all, you don't have to use it. On the other hand, we will enormously appreciate constructive criticisms, or even programs for those who want to delve in the innards of PARI without the technical reference manual, which remains to be written (a start is Chapter 5 of the users manual). Again, we repeat that you must feel free to spread PARI if you think it useful, with this README file included. However do NOT spread modified versions without getting permission from us. The two modes in which you can use PARI are: -- The library mode -- The programmable calculator mode, called gp. In addition, gp can be used in a special GNUemacs buffer, and this provides additional capabilities (thanks mainly to David Carlisle). Our address is: Prof. Henri COHEN (re: PARI) UFR de Mathematiques et Informatique Universite Bordeaux I 351 Cours de la Liberation 33405 TALENCE CEDEX FRANCE e-mail: pari@alioth.greco-prog.fr (Internet number 192.33.148.35)