[GAP Forum] "IsRationalNumber" as synonym for "IsRat"

[Alexander Konovalov]

Dear Jakob, dear GAP Forum,

On 21 Feb 2012, at 19:04, kroeker wrote:

> Dear GAP-developers,
> 
> I do not really like the function name  "IsRat" for the check if an object is a rational number
> and suggest to introduce the synonym "IsRationalNumber" :
>  DeclareSynonym("IsRationalNumber",IsRat);
> 
> What is your opinion?
> 
> Jakob

GAP as a number of short names for such common categories like e.g. `IsInt', `IsPosInt', `IsCyc', 
`IsBool', `IsFFE', `IsChar', `IsPerm' etc., so to my mind `IsRat' fits this naming scheme quite 
well. These are used in many method installations and having compact names is quite handy. 

The page http://www.gap-system.org/Faq/Usage/usage1.html explains how to customise GAP using the
.gaprc file, so if you prefer this synonym for your personal use, you may add this line there.
Of course, any code using it will not work without this declaration. 

Best wishes,
Alexander