SOURCES OF DOCUMENTATION

There are eight components to the Magma documentation:

• A first steps overview ("First Steps in Magma")
• An introduction ("Introduction")
• A full reference manual ("Handbook")
• A set of examples of solving problems with Magma ("Solving problems")
• An overview of the Magma system ("Overview document")
• An on-line Help system with a Browser
• A HTML version of the Help system, overview and the Magma Handbook (htmlhelp, this document)
• A low-level on-line help facility for Categories and Intrinsics

The Introduction (Files pdf version) provides a gentle introduction to Magma. It does not assume familiarity either with computer languages or computer algebra systems. It covers all the basics of the Magma language and provides an introduction to the important mathematical modules.

The Handbook (about 4500 pages: Files part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13 , provides a terse summary of the language and gives full descriptions of the facilities provided for each of the mathematical modules. It constitutes the central reference manual for the system. A large number of examples are included. These examples are listed under a unique name in the Handbook and are included as one of the libraries distributed with the system (see below). This allows the reader to run any example appearing in the Handbook by typing

        load "Name";

The problem-solving book (Files: pdf version) offers a collection of substantial algebraic problems, solved using the Magma language and intrinsics.

The Overview of Magma V2.19 Features (Files: pdf version) contains an overview of all of the Magma categories and their operations.

Information about the on-line help system in Magma can be obtained by typing

?

The Magma HTML Help Document is this document.

Tips & Tricks

On-line help for functions and operators may be obtained within Magma as follows:

   ListCategories();

will produce a list of all "category" names;

   ListSignatures(cat)

will list all operators and functions whose signatures involve the category "cat";

   <intrinsic> ;

will print all signatures for the intrinsic (function or procedure) having name <intrinsic>, together with a synopsis of the semantics of the function. For example, typing:

    Order;

will print all signatures for the intrinsic function 'Order' (note there are no parentheses here). See the Introduction or Handbook for full details.