This file highlights some of the novelties in PARI/GP 2.x compared to 1.39.15
(last release in the 1.x series). The detailed Changelog is in CHANGES.
Incompatible changes are described in COMPAT. See TODO for possible future
improvements.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% VERSION 2.1 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

   * PARI/GP is now released under the GNU General Public License.

   * PARI now has a CVS server which is intended for PARI lovers who want 
     the very latest bleeding edge release (see the CVS.txt file).

   * Argument checks have been added to prevent unpredictable results when 
     the input is incorrect.

   * Errors can be trapped to avoid abort and recover computations.

   * extended on-line help:
     ?? (no arguments)      opens the users'manual in xdvi,
     ?? tutorial / refcard  opens tutorial / refcard in xdvi,
     ??? keyword            searches for topic in the manual.

   * Arithmetic: much faster integer factorization with several factoring
     engines including Pollard Rho, SQUFOF, improved ECM, and an MPQS/PMPQS
     implementation derived from LiDIA's, with kind permission from the LiDIA
     team

   * Polynomials:
     - much faster factorization over Z[X] (van Hoeij's algorithm) or Fq[X]
       (more efficient modular kernel), esp. when the polynomial is defined
       over Fp.
     - Ducos' subresultant algorithm for resultants

   * Number field:
     - improved ROUND 4 for computations of integral basis/discriminant
     - faster polredabs / rnfpolredabs polynomial reductions functions
     - Galois extensions of Q: Fixed fields, Galois conjugates using
       Allombert's algorithm.

   * Class group, ray-class group: 
     - improved bnf/bnr functions (faster, numerically stabler), in
       particular bnfisprincipal
     - computations of explicit defining equations of abelian extensions of
       imaginery quadratic fields (using complex multiplication) of totally 
       real abelian extensions (using Stark units).

   * Elliptic functions: Weierstrass and Weber functions.

   * Plotting: support of gnuplot, new functions (possiblity to plot directly 
     in a file).

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% VERSION 2.0 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
The GP/PARI structure has been cleaned up.

   * The whole configuration process has been automated, and a Configure
     file is provided. Just typing `./Configure' should see you home in most
     cases.

   * PARI is now available as a dynamic library, thanks to Louis Granboulan.
     (you can link GP with it, if you wish to). This saves a tremendous
     amount of disk space, and is generally more convenient as you don't need
     to re-link your files when updating the library (or when debugging.
     or profiling, or...).

   * types now have a symbolic mnemonic name (e.g t_INT for an integer,
     t_VEC for a vector, and so on).

   * General speed-up (depends on your applications, about 40% for our
     generic testing file).

   * Experimental module loading structure (the actual function tree
     has not yet been cut into modules, but for the GP specific functions).

==========================================================================
Many new or improved functions in the PARI library.

   * MANY class-field related functions. In particular:
     - is it now possible to try and remove the GRH assumption on class group
     computations.
     - ray class groups computations (including discrete log).
     - explicit defining equations in simple cases (Kummer extensions of prime
       degree, quadratic base field).

   * computation of Galois groups up to degree 11

   * roots is now entirely reliable, thanks to Xavier Gourdon.

   * some core routines have been optimized: Karatsuba fast multiplication,
     a specific function gsqr() for squarings,...

   * input/output is much more flexible now:
     - a function GENtostring has been added, generalizing gitoascii to any
     PARI object (with a simpler syntax: GENtostring(g) returns a malloc'ed
     string containing g as gp would print it).

     - lisexpr has a relative flisexpr (for filtered lisexpr), which enables
     you to use input containing whitespaces.

     - you can use GENs in formatted output, a la printf.

   * improved garbage collecting.

   * private variables can be created without an explicit lisexpr(), using
     fetch_var() and delete_var().

==========================================================================
GP has been completely re-written:

   * lowercase/uppercase are now significant. All predefined constants
     (Euler, I, Pi) have been renamed (as well, the o() notation for series
     and padics has been superseded by O()).

     for (i=1,10, print(i)) will not yield an error anymore.

   * human-readable error messages, including a caret to indicate where
     a GP syntax error occurred.

   * function names were renamed according to a more logical scheme. The
     file new.dico provides a translation (available under GP using "whatnow")

   * You can retrieve basic information from complicated objects using member
     functions. For instance x.disc will yield the discriminant of x, whether
     it was created by nfinit (aka initalg), bnfinit (aka buchinit), ellinit
     (aka initell).

   * A `gprc' file is available to set "permanent" defaults (such as
     global variables, aliases, custom user functions, etc...).  For instance,
     you can put all your scripts in some special directories, and
     point them out to GP using "path". See misc/gprc.dft for examples.

     The function "default" enables to change most defaults under gp.
     For instance: default(compatible, 2) will give you back the former gp
     function names and helpmessages. [default(compatible, 3) undoes the
     lowercaps/uppercaps changes as well]. Try "default".

   * basic C idiosyncrasies such as for instance i++ (for i=i+1), i<<1
     (for left shift) or i+=j (for i=i+j) are now allowed within GP scripts.
     /* */ multi-line comments are understood.

   * lists and (primitive) string support have been added. Characters can be
     quoted with the usual meaning. As a result, set functions can now be
     used with arbitrary elements.

   * if your terminal supports color (variants of color_xterm for instance),
     you can tell GP to highlight its output in different (user configurable)
     colors. This is done by fiddling with the default "colors".

   * The familiar functions "break", "next" and "return" are now available.
     These should supersede the buggy label/goto provided in older versions.

   * Enhanced on-line help. If you have perl on your system, try
     ?? function-name (e.g ?? bnfinit)
     This is provided by external scripts which can be used independently,
     outside of the GP session.

   * If readline is installed on your system, a context-dependent completion
     (not yet user-programmable) is now available (try hitting <TAB> here and
     there). Try ?? readline.

   * many functions now have default arguments (shown between braces {} in
     the on-line description). gp first reads user-supplied arguments, and
     then fills in the arg list with these default values. Optional args can
     be entirely omitted, comma included (for a function with no mandatory
     arguments, even parentheses are optional !). For instance:

       Mat = Mat()
       bnfclassunit(x^2+1,0) = bnfclassunit(x^2+1)
       bnfclassunit(x^2+1,,[0.2,0.2]) = bnfclassunit(x^2+1,0,[0.2,0.2])

       The "else" part of the "if" function can be entirely omitted.
       if (a,1) is now correct; of course, the former syntax if (a,1,) is
       still valid.

   * functions "extern" and "system" have been added to interface with
     external programs (UNIX only). You can do for instance
     extern("myprog"), or system("ls -l *.gp").

   * even better, "install" enables you to load any function provided by
     a dynamically linked library, and have the GP interpreter use it. This
     makes it easy to have your own customized version of GP with your own set
     of functions on startup (you can document them using "addhelp").

   * On 32-bit machines, maximum number of variables has been increased from
     254 to 16382. Arrays can have up to 16777214 elements (instead of 65534).
     In addition vector/matrix operations in GP now perform orders of
     magnitudes faster than in version 1.39
