# Ring functionality

AbstractAlgebra has both commutative and noncommutative rings. Together we refer to them below as rings.

## Abstract types for rings

All commutative ring types in AbstractAlgebra belong to the Ring abstract type and commutative ring elements belong to the RingElem abstract type.

Noncommutative ring types belong to the NCRing abstract type and their elements to NCRingElem.

As Julia types cannot belong to our RingElem type hierarchy, we also provide the union type RingElement which includes RingElem in union with the Julia types Integer, Rational and AbstractFloat.

Similarly NCRingElement includes the Julia types just mentioned in union with NCRingElem.

Note that

Ring <: NCRing
RingElem <: NCRingElem
RingElement <: NCRingElement

## Functions for types and parents of rings

parent_type(::Type{T}) where T <: NCRingElement
elem_type(::Type{T}) where T <: NCRing

Return the type of the parent (resp. element) type corresponding to the given ring element (resp. parent) type.

base_ring(R::NCRing)
base_ring(a::NCRingElement)

For generic ring constructions over a base ring (e.g. polynomials over a coefficient ring), return the parent object of that base ring.

parent(a::NCRingElement)

Return the parent of the given ring element.

is_domain_type(::Type{T}) where T <: NCRingElement
is_exact_type(::Type{T}) where T <: NCRingElement

Return true if the given ring element type can only belong to elements of an integral domain or exact ring respectively. (An exact ring is one whose elements are represented exactly in the system without approximation.)

The following function is implemented where mathematically and algorithmically possible.

characteristic(R::NCRing)

## Constructors

If R is a parent object of a ring in AbstractAlgebra, it can always be used to construct certain objects in that ring.

(R::NCRing)() # constructs zero
(R::NCRing)(c::Integer)
(R::NCRing)(c::elem_type(R))
(R::NCRing{T})(a::T) where T <: RingElement

## Basic functions

All rings in AbstractAlgebra are expected to implement basic ring operations, unary minus, binary addition, subtraction and multiplication, equality testing, powering.

In addition, the following are implemented for parents/elements just as they would be in Julia for types/objects.

zero(R::NCRing)
one(R::NCRing)
iszero(a::NCRingElement)
isone(a::NCRingElement)

In addition, the following are implemented where it is mathematically/algorithmically viable to do so.

is_unit(a::NCRingElement)
is_zero_divisor(a::NCRingElement)
is_zero_divisor_with_annihilator(a::NCRingElement)

The following standard Julia functions are also implemented for all ring elements.

hash(f::RingElement, h::UInt)
deepcopy_internal(a::RingElement, dict::ObjectIdDict)
show(io::IO, R::NCRing)
show(io::IO, a::NCRingElement)

## Basic functionality for inexact rings only

By default, inexact ring elements in AbstractAlgebra compare equal if they are the same to the minimum precision of the two elements. However, we also provide the following more strict notion of equality, which also requires the precisions to be the same.

isequal(a::T, b::T) where T <: NCRingElement

For floating point and ball arithmetic it is sometimes useful to be able to check if two elements are approximately equal, e.g. to suppress numerical noise in comparisons. For this, the following are provided.

isapprox(a::T, b::T; atol::Real=sqrt(eps())) where T <: RingElement

Similarly, for a parameterised ring with type MyElem{T} over such an inexact ring we have the following.

isapprox(a::MyElem{T}, b::T; atol::Real=sqrt(eps())) where T <: RingElement
isapprox(a::T, b::MyElem{T}; atol::Real=sqrt(eps())) where T <: RingElement

These notionally perform a coercion into the parameterised ring before doing the approximate equality test.

## Basic functionality for commutative rings only

divexact(a::T, b::T) where T <: RingElement
inv(a::T)

Return a/b or 1/a respectively, where the slash here refers to the mathematical notion of division in the ring, not Julia's floating point division operator.

## Basic functionality for noncommutative rings only

divexact_left(a::T, b::T) where T <: NCRingElement
divexact_right(a::T, b::T) where T <: NCRingElement

As per divexact above, except that division by b happens on the left or right, respectively, of a.

## Unsafe ring operators

To speed up polynomial arithmetic, various unsafe operators are provided, which mutate the output rather than create a new object.

zero!(a::NCRingElement)
mul!(a::T, b::T, c::T) where T <: NCRingElement
add!(a::T, b::T, c::T) where T <: NCRingElement
addeq!(a::T, b::T) where T <: NCRingElement
addmul!(a::T, b::T, c::T, t::T) where T <: NCRingElement

In each case the mutated object is the leftmost parameter.

The addeq!(a, b) operation does the same thing as add!(a, a, b). The optional addmul!(a, b, c, t) operation does the same thing as mul!(t, b, c); addeq!(a, t) where t is a temporary which can be mutated so that an addition allocation is not needed.

## Random generation

The Julia random interface is implemented for all ring parents (instead of for types). The exact interface differs depending on the ring, but the parameters supplied are usually ranges, e.g. -1:10 for the range of allowed degrees for a univariate polynomial.

rand(R::NCRing, v...)

## Factorization

For commutative rings supporting factorization and irreducibility testing, the following optional functions may be implemented.

is_irreducible(a::T) where T <: RingElement
is_squarefree(a::T) where T <: RingElement

Decide whether a is irreducible or squarefree, respectively.

factor(a::T) where T <: RingElement
factor_squarefree(a::T) where T <: RingElement

Return a factorization into irreducible or squarefree elements, respectively. The return is an object of type Fac{T}.

FacType
Fac{T <: RingElement}

Type for factored ring elements. The structure holds a unit of type T and is an iterable collection of T => Int pairs for the factors and exponents.

unitMethod
unit(a::Fac{T}) -> T

Return the unit of the factorization.

evaluateMethod
evaluate(a::Fac{T}) -> T

Multiply out the factorization into a single element.

getindexMethod
getindex(a::Fac, b) -> Int

If $b$ is a factor of $a$, the corresponding exponent is returned. Otherwise an error is thrown.

setindex!Method
setindex!(a::Fac{T}, c::Int, b::T)

If $b$ is a factor of $a$, the corresponding entry is set to $c$.