proposal to bring ifactor into src/, was: Factoring large integers

On 2/1/06, Raymond Toy <raymond.toy at ericsson.com> wrote:

> That's not a bad idea.  Or just replace factor with ifactor?

That is OK by me --- Andrej, do you want to work on that?

The Maxima function "factor" does more than just factoring
integers, so it is necessary to identify which Lisp function
actually does the integer factoring. I don't know which one it is.

I am aware that the Miller-Rabin test is a probabilistic test
so there is a nonzero chance that a number reported to be
prime might not be. However, if I'm not mistaken the
probability of a spurious answer is much lower than that
of a bug in the existing factor code, so I am willing to live
with it. Of course, we should advertise the methods used
in the help text for factor.

best
Robert Dodier