Text Options of the Executable phc

Text options of phc do not compute anything, but provide text information about phc.

While the regular options of phc start with a single dash -, the text options are double dashed, they start with --.

phc –version : displays the current version string

Typing at the command prompt phc --version displays the version string which includes the current version number and the release date.

phc –license : writes the license to screen

The output of

phc --license

is

PHCpack is free and open source software.
You can redistribute the code and/or modify it under
the GNU General Pulic License as published by
the Free Software Foundation.

phc –cite : how to cite PHCpack

Typing phc --cite at the command prompt displays

To cite PHCpack in publications use:

Jan Verschelde:
Algorithm 795: PHCpack: A general-purpose solver for polynomial
systems by homotopy continuation.
ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, 25(2):251--276, 1999.

phc –help : writes helpful information to screen

Typing at the command prompt phc --help provides some help to get started with the quickest use, that is: with the blackbox solver.

To obtain help about the blackbox solver, type phc -b --help or phc --help -b where the --help may be abbreviated by -h.