loops/doc/chap1.txt

  
  1 Introduction
  
  LOOPS is a package for GAP4 whose purpose is to:
  
      provide   researchers   in  nonassociative  algebra  with  a  powerful
        computational tool concerning finite loops and quasigroups,
  
      extend GAP toward the realm of nonassociative structures.
  
  LOOPS has been accepted as an official package of GAP in May 2015.
  
  
  1.1 License
  
  LOOPS  is  free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
  terms  of  the GNU General Public License version 3 as published by the Free
  Software Foundation.
  
  
  1.2 Installation
  
  Have GAP 4.7 or newer installed on your computer.
  
  If  you do not see the subfolder pkg/loops in the main directory of GAP then
  download    the    LOOPS    package    from    the    distribution   website
  http://www.math.du.edu/loops  and  unpack  the  downloaded file into the pkg
  subfolder.
  
  The   package   LOOPS   can  then  be  loaded  to  GAP  anytime  by  calling
  LoadPackage("loops");.
  
  If  you  wish  to  load  LOOPS  automatically while starting GAP, start GAP,
  execute the following commands,
  
  gap> pref := UserPreference( "PackagesToLoad " );;
  gap> Add( pref, "loops" );;
  gap> SetUserPreference( "PackagesToLoad", pref );;
  gap> WriteGapIniFile();;
  
  quit GAP and restart it.
  
  
  1.3 Documentation
  
  The documentation has been prepared with the GAPDoc package and is therefore
  available in several formats: LaTeX, pdf, ps, html, and as an inline help in
  GAP.  All  these  formats  have  been  obtained directly from the master XML
  documentation file. Consequently, the different formats of the documentation
  differ only in their appearance, not in content.
  
  The preferred format of the documentation is html with MathJax turned on.
  
  All  formats  of  the documentation can be found in the doc folder of LOOPS.
  You can also download the documentation from the LOOPS distribution website.
  
  The  inline  GAP help is available upon installing LOOPS and can be accessed
  in  the  usual  way, i.e., upon typing ?command, GAP displays the section of
  the LOOPS manual containing information about command.
  
  
  1.4 Test Files
  
  Test  files  conforming  to  GAP standards are provided for LOOPS and can be
  found  in  the  folder tst. The command ReadPackage("loops","tst/testall.g")
  runs all tests for LOOPS.
  
  
  1.5 Memory Management
  
  Some  libraries of loops are loaded only upon explicit demand and can occupy
  a  lot  of  memory. For instance, the library or RCC loops occupies close to
  100  MB  of  memory  when fully loaded. The command LOOPS_FreeMemory(); will
  attempt to free memory by unbinding on-demand library data loaded by LOOPS.
  
  
  1.6 Feedback
  
  We   welcome  all  comments  and  suggestions  on  LOOPS,  especially  those
  concerning  the  future  development  of  the package. You can contact us by
  e-mail.
  
  
  1.7 Acknowledgment
  
  We  thank  the following people for sending us remarks and comments, and for
  suggesting  new  functionality of the package: Muniru Asiru, Bjoern Assmann,
  Andreas  Distler, Aleš Drápal, Steve Flammia, Kenneth W. Johnson, Michael K.
  Kinyon, Alexander Konovalov, Frank Lübeck and Jonathan D.H. Smith.
  
  The  library  of Moufang loops of order 243 was generated from data provided
  by Michael C. Slattery and Ashley L. Zenisek. The library of right conjugacy
  closed  loops  of  order  less  than  28 was generated from data provided by
  Katharina  Artic.  The library of commutative automorphic loops of order 27,
  81 and 243 was obtained jointly with Izabella Stuhl.
  
  Gábor  P.  Nagy  was  supported by OTKA grants F042959 and T043758, and Petr
  Vojtěchovský  was  supported  by the 2006 and 2016 University of Denver PROF
  grants and the Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant 210176.