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 computer science.
The module supports compiling Math::Symbolic trees to fast Perl or C code.
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.
Using the Math::Symbolic::Custom::LaTeXDumper distribution from CPAN, it is possible to dump Math::Symbolic trees as LaTeX formulae!
You are encouraged to visit http://search.cpan.org and search for 'Math::Symbolic'. You will find various extension modules!
INSTALLATION
To install this module type the following:
perl Build.PL
./Build
./Build test
./Build install
On platforms that don't support the "./" notation, that would be:
perl Build.PL
perl Build
perl Build test
perl Build install
If you wish, you may use the old MakeMaker style instead:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
Since version 0.501, we include support for a new, faster Parse::Yapp based parser. By default we use the old parser, but if you would like to test the new parser, run the tests as follows:
TEST_YAPP_PARSER=1 ./Build test
DEPENDENCIES
This module requires these other modules and libraries:
Test::More
Exporter
Parse::RecDescent
Memoize
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) 2003-2010 Steffen Mueller
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl (5) itself.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Steffen Müller, symbolic-module at steffen-mueller dot net Stray Toaster, mwk at users dot sourceforge dot net Oliver Ebenhöh