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1.1 Description

GNU MPRIA is intended to be a portable mathematical library written in C for rational interval arithmetic computations with arbitrary precision.

The basic principle of rational interval arithmetic consists in enclosing every number by a rational interval containing it: each number is stored as its lower and upper endpoints and these bounds are rational numbers; their absolute difference measures the precision. The purpose is on the right hand to obtain guaranteed results, thanks to interval computation, and on the left hand to compute accurate results, thanks to arbitrary precision arithmetic.

The arithmetic operations are extended for interval operands in such a way that the exact result of the operation belongs to the computed rational interval.

The GNU MPRIA library is built upon the GNU MP library for operating on rational numbers; see

http://gmplib.org/.