[GAP Forum] The stability of group libraries

[Stefan Kohl]

Dear Leonard,

obviously a definitive answer to your question needs to be left to the
authors of the group libraries in question, but I have seen so many references
to e.g. SmallGroup(n,k) for particular values n and k in the literature that
it would likely cause major disruption if this would suddenly be a different group.
I would assume the same to hold for other group libraries, like the ones of
transitive groups and of primitive groups. However I am less sure about whether
details like which generators are stored are guaranteed to remain unchanged
in future versions.

Best wishes,

    Stefan

On Wed, January 28, 2015 1:38 pm, Leonard Soicher wrote:
> Dear GAP Developers, Dear GAP-Forum,
>
> I would like to know what the policy is concerning the groups
> in the the very useful GAP libraries of transitive permutation groups and
> of primitive permutation groups (and any other group library you wish to comment on)
> as regards to any possible changes wihen changes are made in GAP. In particular,
> were the actual groups in the library, their GeneratorsOfGroup, and their indexing
> within the library fixed in perpetuity when the library was initially made available in
> GAP4,
> and if not, what is the mechanism to alert users to any changes? This is important
> for being able to repeat, check, report on, and extend results made using specific
> groups in a given  library.
>
> Thank you for your help,
> Leonard
>
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