Thanks for your interest in NCAlgebra.

The latest version of NCAlgebra can be found in:

https://github.com/NCAlgebra/NC

Additional information, including old releases and historical examples, is available at:

http://math.ucsd.edu/~ncalg

WARNING TO USERS OF VERSION 5 AND OLDER: NCALGEBRA VERSION 6 CHANGES THE CANNONICAL REPRESENTATION OF NONCOMMUTATIVE EXPRESSIONS.

THIS IS A BREAKING CHANGE THAT CAN AFFECT EXISTING PROGRAMS USING NCALGEBRA.

THE MOST NOTABLE LIKELY CONSTRUCTION THAT IS AFFECTED BY THIS CHANGE IS THE APPLICATION OF RULES BASED ON PATTERN MATCHING, WHICH NOW NEED TO EXPLICITLY TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE PRESENCE OF EXPONENTS. SEE MANUAL FOR DETAILS ON HOW TO MITIGATE THE IMPACT OF THIS CHANGE. ALL NCALGEBRA COMMANDS HAVE BEEN REWRITTEN TO ACCOMODATE FOR THIS CHANGE IN REPRESENTATION.

Starting with version 6.0.0, it is recommended that NCAlgebra be installed using our paclet distribution. Just type:

PacletInstall["https://github.com/NCAlgebra/NC/blob/master/NCAlgebra-6.0.3.paclet?raw=true"];

for the latest version.

In the near future we plant to submit paclets to the Wolfram paclet repository for easier updates.

Alternatively, you can download and install NCAlgebra as outlined in the user manual.

If you installed using our paclet distribution, all NCAlgebra high-level packages are directly avaiable. For example, in Mathematica (notebook or text interface), just type

<< NCAlgebra`

to load NCAlgebra.

If you installed manually, then you will need to to type

<< NC`

first before loading any NCAlgebra packages. If this fails, your installation has problems (check out previous section). If your installation is succesful you will see a message like:

NC::Directory: You are using the version of NCAlgebra which is found in: "/your_home_directory/NC".

In the paclet version, it is no longer necessary to load the context NC.

Loading the context NC in the paclet version is however still supported for backward compatibility. It does nothing more than posting the message:

NC::Directory: You are using a paclet version of NCAlgebra.

Extensive documentation is found at

https://NCAlgebra.github.io

and in the distribution directory

https://github.com/NCAlgebra/NC/DOCUMENTATION

which includes this document.

You may want to try some of the several demo files in the directory DEMOS after you install NCAlgebra.

You can also run some tests to see if things are working fine.

Testing in v6 is now done by loading a context

There are 3 test sets which you can use to troubleshoot parts of NCAlgebra. The most comprehensive test set is run by typing:

<< NCCORETEST`

NCCORETEST replaces the old NCTEST tests

This will test the core functionality of NCAlgebra.

You can test functionality related to the package NCPoly, including the new NCGBX package NCGBX, by typing:

<< NCPOLYTEST`

Finally our Semidefinite Programming Solver NCSDP can be tested with

<< NCSDPTEST`

We recommend that you restart the kernel before and after running tests. Each test takes a few minutes to run.

You can also call

<< NCPOLYTESTGB`

to perform extensive and long testing of NCGBX.

Manual installation

If you are not using the paclet version of NCAlgebra you need to load NC as in

<< NC`

before running the tests.

Starting with version 6, the old C++ version of our Groebner Basis Algorithm is no longer compatible with NCAlgebra. Use the NCGBX implementation instead.

Please report any bug or your extraordinarily pleasant experience with NCAlgebra by email

ncalg@math.ucsd.edu

Thanks,

Bill Helton and Mauricio de Oliveira