.\" Man page for Rascal - the Advanced Scientific CALculator
.\"
.\" Copyright (C) 2000 Sebastian Ritterbusch (Rascal@Ritterbusch.de)
.\"
.\" Process this file with
.\" groff -man -Tascii rascal.1
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.\" Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
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.TH RASCAL 1 "25 Jun 2001" 
.SH NAME
Rascal - the Advanced Scientific CALculator
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B rascal [-hqn] [--h(elp)] [-e 
.I <expression>
.B ] [--e(valuate) 
.I <expression>
.B ] [--q(uiet)] [--n(orc)] [--v(ersion)] [--l(icence)]
.I [<file> ...]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.B Rascal, 
the Advanced Scientific CALculator, is a platform-independent modular
calculator. It is based on modules for supporting its various data types,
and it can be easily extended with existing C or C++ code. The available
modules are integers, long numbers, doubles, strings, vectors, matrices,
complex numbers, Taylor arithmetic (automatic differentiation), and
fractions.

.SH OPTIONS
.IP "-h, --h(elp)"
Display a help message
.IP "-e <expression>, --e(valuate) <expression>"
Evaluate the following expression and quit
.IP "-q, --q(uiet)"
Suppress start-up message
.IP "-n, --n(orc)"
Do not load rc files
.IP --v(ersion)
Display version information
.IP --l(icence)
Display licence information
.IP <file>
Use content of file as user input

.SH USAGE
After starting Rascal you will find yourself in an interactive user session.
At the prompt you can enter expressions that are to be evaluated. You can
use the cursor up and down keys to switch to previous commands or press the
TAB key once or twice to take advantage of command completion.

For more information read the extensive user documentation:

.B gv
.I /usr/local/doc/rascal/rascal.ps

.SH EXAMPLE SESSIONS

Simple expressions:

   >5+2
    7
   >5+2;
   >

Variables:

   >MyVariable3=7;
   >MyVariable3*MyVariable3
    49

Functions:

   >Function15(x)=x*x+5*x;
   >Function15(2)
    14

Conditional Expressions:

   >MyAbs(x)=( x>0 ? x : -x);
   >MyAbs(-18)
    18

Iterations:

   >for(x=1;x<=3;x=x+1) 2*x
    2
    4
    6

Vectors and Matrices:

   >A=[1 2;3 4];
   >b=[2;5];
   >A*b
    [12;26]
   >b'*b
    [29]
   >b*b'
    [4 10;10 25]
   >2/A
    [-4 2;3 -1]
 
.SH FILES
.I /etc/rascal.rc 
.RS
.RE
.I /usr/local/bin/rascal.rc 
.RS
.RE
.I ./rascal.rc
.RS
Start-up definitions (definitions of constants like pi, e and imaginary unit
i)
.RE
.P
.I /usr/local/doc/rascal/rascal.ps 
.RS
.RE
.I /usr/local/doc/rascal/rascal.pdf
.RS
.RE
.I /usr/local/doc/rascal/rascal/rascal.html
.RS
User documentation, to view it invoke
.RS
.RE
.B gv
.I /usr/local/doc/rascal/rascal.ps
.RE
.P
.I /usr/local/doc/rascal/TEST
.RS
Test suite, to test Rascal invoke
.RS
.RE
.BI "rascal " "/usr/local/doc/rascal/TEST"
.RE
.P
.I /usr/local/doc/rascal/CHANGES
.RS
Changelog

.SH AVAILABILITY

You may download the latest releases at
.RE
.I http://rascal.sourceforge.net/

.SH BUGS

Send bugs to 
.B "rascal@ritterbusch.de"
or use the contact sheet that can be
found on the homepage at
.RE
.I "http://rascal.sourceforge.net/"
and attach the output of the test
.RE
.BI "rascal " "/usr/local/doc/rascal/TEST"

.SH AUTHOR
Sebastian Ritterbusch <rascal@ritterbusch.de>

.SH ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Davide Angelocola for testing, discussions
and spar which can be found at
.RE
.I "http://spar.sourceforge.net/"

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR "bc(1)   " "An arbitrary precision calculator language"