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toField -- declare that a ring is a field

Synopsis:

  • Usage: toField R
  • Input:

  • Output:
  • R: a ring
  • Use this to declare that a ring R is known to be a field. This is accomplished by setting R.isField to be true, and, in case the ring is a ring handled by the engine, informing the engine. Polynomial rings over rings declared to be fields support Groebner basis operations.

    If the engine eventually discovers that some nonzero element of R is not a unit, an error will be signalled. The user may then use getNonUnit to obtain a non-invertible element of R, or getZeroDivisor to obtain a zero divisor in R. If a ring is probably a field, it can be used as a field until a contradiction is found, and this may be a good way of discovering whether a ring is a field.


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