Manual for mpz_powm, mpz_powm_ui

[abbott at dima.unige.it]

Quoting tg at gmplib.org:

> abbott at dima.unige.it writes:
>
>   What do mpz_powm and mpz_powm_ui return when the caller requests 0^0?


My original query was about completeness of the documentation: what behaviour
of mpz_powm can I rely on? (so I can give guarantees about my code)


> It is exponentiation in a ring, one should think of as quot[ient]ing with the
> last argument m, i.e., Z/mZ.  When m = 0 this is plain old Z.
>
> Is that not what you observe?

I have just tried with GMP-6.1.1, and mpz_powm gave me "Floating point  
exception"
when trying to compute mpz_powm(0,0,0).  Same for mpz_powm(0,1,0).
Personally I think giving an error is better behaviour than computing  
the result
in Z, because if a user calls mpz_powm with zero modulus then most  
probably the
calling code contains a bug.


>   Are there restrictions on the value of the last arg (modulus)?
>   [can modulus be 0, 1, negative?]

My guess is that modulus==0 always gives "FP exception", i.e.  
effectively forbidden.
The case modulus==1 is "special" in that it corresponds to the null ring;
presumably the answer is always 0, unless the exponent is negative  
when it gives error.


> The sign of m does not affect the result.

It would be nice to add this to the documentation (e.g. as was done  
for mpz_mod).


Anyway thanks for the great library!
John Abbott
PS I originally sent to gmp-bugs because that what it said to do at the
    bottom of the info page about "Reporting Bugs" in the GMP info tree.