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Introduction

The rings part of OSCAR provides functionality for handling various kinds of rings:

Subtle but important: / vs //

OSCAR distinguishes a number of different kinds of divisions. In particular, the operators / and // have distinct meanings.

Let x and y be elements of a ring.

  • x / y is a shorthand for divexact(x,y) and performs division within their parent ring (raising an error if this is not possible).
  • x // y constructs a formal quotient, placing the result in a fraction-field parent.

Example:

julia> R, x = polynomial_ring(QQ, :x)
(Univariate polynomial ring in x over QQ, x)

julia> f = 1+x
x + 1

julia> parent(f//2)
Fraction field
  of univariate polynomial ring in x over QQ

julia> parent(f/2)
Univariate polynomial ring in x over QQ
Note

The above behavior applies to OSCAR types. For plain Julia numbers, / denotes floating-point division. Indeed, it is a common error to enter 1/2 for the fraction 'one half' in Julia. We provide more details on integer division in OSCAR.

In case the ring in question is a field (which means that it is canonically isomorphic to its field of fractions), // coincides with exact division:

julia> F101 = GF(101)
Finite field of characteristic 101

julia> j = F101(9)
9

julia> parent(j//j)
Finite field of characteristic 101

julia> parent(j) == parent(j//j)
true

If the ring in question is not an integral domain, its field of fractions does not exist in a strict mathematical sense. Nevertheless, // may still construct formal fractions. However, computations with such objects may fail. Use with care!

The following example illustrates such failures for $\mathbb{Z}/100 \mathbb{Z}$ (which is not an integral domain, since $100 = 2^2 \times 5^2$, hence has zero divisors).

julia> RR,_ = residue_ring(ZZ, 100)
(Integers modulo 100, Map: ZZ -> ZZ/(100))

julia> a = RR(9)
9

julia> parent(a)
Integers modulo 100

julia> W = parent(a//a)
Fraction field
  of integers modulo 100

julia> new_j = 10*W(1)
10

julia> inv_new_j = 1/new_j
1//10

julia> inv_new_j^2
Error showing value of type AbstractAlgebra.Generic.FracFieldElem{zzModRingElem}:
ERROR: Impossible inverse in Integers modulo 100

julia> weird = (inv_new_j)^2;

julia> is_zero(1//weird)
true

In contrast, running the above code over $\mathbb{Z}/101\mathbb{Z}$ completes successfully.

Contact

Please direct questions about this part of OSCAR to the following people:

You can ask questions in the OSCAR Slack.

Alternatively, you can raise an issue on github.