Problem solving - when really stuck try...

• A cup of tea/coffee
• Social chat with a colleague
• Walk in the *fresh air
• Visit a huge building with great architecture/decor

Most of those points are really obvious, but all too easy to forget, when engrossed in a tough Mathematical problem.

*Without realising it you might be really need the fresh air!
( If you work in a Science building and have your own small office, then sitting in there all day with the door closed, will reduce the air quality. )

Visiting the Science Museum in London, a local historic building, or a local Cathedral usually works for me also.

( The Cathedral is not my way of seeking 'something divine', but they are usually architecturally interesting and generally not full of hustle and bustle )

For some, a Distraction can also work, and there is a Psychological Science Article summary here giving some details.

The full 2008 research paper by Chen-Bo Zhong, Dijksterhuis, and Galinsky can be found at utoronto.ca here.

Another option, which sometimes works, is to pick a marginally related problem, and plan to come back to the original in a few days time.

gmp library - including methods in your c code

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The gnu Gmp library has many methods for dealing with huge integers.
( It does a lot more than that but I keep a narrow focus for this article )


Here are some links to the documentation for versions 5 and older version 4

• Gmp version 5 [ gmplib.org ]
• Gmp version 4 [ gnu.org ]

When writing your own programs in C, that make use of gmp, you will use an include such as:

#include <gmp.h>

...and then perhaps if working with mpz Integers you might use some of the Integer functions of gmp.

Diving in and compiling with gcc, you might see 'undefined reference to ...' messages, until you have the gmp headers installed, and tell gcc about that.

Compiling against the gmp library is different than simply using the gmp library, and you may need an additional package installed.

On Debian and Ubuntu the source files and/or headers are kept in separate packages from the executables, so as not to bloat your system.

Install the source for gmp using the following command:

apt-get install libgmp-dev

(*Older Debian 6 Squeeze package is named libgmp3-dev rather than libgmp-dev)

...which brings down the necessary files so that gcc can use them in it's compile.

I used aptitude rather than apt-get in the above but the result is the same.

Recap:

• Use in your C program #include <gmp.h>
• Have the dev package installed on your system
• Use the -lgmp flag when you invoke gcc
• gcc arguments -lm and -lgmp should be the LAST argument
    [ as shown in the first screenshot ]
  

Note: I use GNU/Linux and give my instructions for Debian and similar systems. If you use a different platform, then I am unable to help with that and you should look elsewhere for instructions tailored to your chosen platform.


(optional) Integer functions of gmp:

What follows are some hints/personal notes, which serve as a useful reminder to me personally.

( Please consult the official manual, using the links in the first paragraph, as a definitive source of explanation. )

/* mpz_sub_ui versus mpz_sub where ui indicates unsigned integer rather than mpz processing */

/* mpz_cdiv_q versus mpz_tdiv_q will ceiling rather than truncate when calculating quotient */

/* mpz_cmp_ui Compare op1 and op2. Return a positive value if op1 > op2, zero if op1 = op2, or a negative value if op1 < op2. */

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