Function: lcm
Section: number_theoretical
C-Name: glcm0
Prototype: GDG
Help: lcm(x,{y}): least common multiple of x and y, i.e. x*y / gcd(x,y)
up to units.
Description:
(int, int):int lcmii($1, $2)
(gen):gen glcm0($1, NULL)
(gen, gen):gen glcm($1, $2)
Doc: least common multiple of $x$ and $y$, i.e.~such
that $\lcm(x,y)*\gcd(x,y) = x*y$, up to units. If $y$ is omitted and $x$
is a vector, returns the $\text{lcm}$ of all components of $x$.
For integer arguments, return the non-negative \text{lcm}.
When $x$ and $y$ are both given and one of them is a vector/matrix type,
the LCM is again taken recursively on each component, but in a different way.
If $y$ is a vector, resp.~matrix, then the result has the same type as $y$,
and components equal to \kbd{lcm(x, y[i])}, resp.~\kbd{lcm(x, y[,i])}. Else
if $x$ is a vector/matrix the result has the same type as $x$ and an
analogous definition. Note that for these types, \kbd{lcm} is not
commutative.
Note that \kbd{lcm(v)} is quite different from
\bprog
l = v[1]; for (i = 1, #v, l = lcm(l, v[i]))
@eprog\noindent
Indeed, \kbd{lcm(v)} is a scalar, but \kbd{l} may not be (if one of
the \kbd{v[i]} is a vector/matrix). The computation uses a divide-conquer tree
and should be much more efficient, especially when using the GMP
multiprecision kernel (and more subquadratic algorithms become available):
\bprog
? v = vector(10^5, i, random);
? lcm(v);
time = 546 ms.
? l = v[1]; for (i = 1, #v, l = lcm(l, v[i]))
time = 4,561 ms.
@eprog