This version was originally last updated April 13th, 1999. See the MathLib Information web page for the latest version, source code, bug reports, or other information, or send email to rhuebner@radiks.net.
MathLib is a PalmOS shared library which makes a complete set of IEEE-754 double-precision math functions available to other PalmPilot applications. These functions include all the standard routines normally accessed by including "math.h" on other systems, including trigonometry (with inverse and hyperbolic), logarithms, exponentiation, and miscellaneous helper functions. The only standard routines I left out were the Bessel and Gamma functions, which had the poor taste to be both very large and very rarely used. These routines have been ported from the GCC 2.7.2.2 source code for libm.a (which was itself based on free code originally developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.), so this library is free software covered by the GNU Library General Public License.
There are two main advantages to using this library. Firstly, writing floating-point math functions that are reasonably fast, accurate, and robust is so incredibly difficult that few programmers will manage it on their own; hopefully, this library will spark the availability of many new programs for the Pilot that were impossible before. And secondly, as you can see from the size of this thing, floating-point code on the Pilot takes up a lot of space. It's much better to have a single copy shared between all the programs that need it than to have each application include their own. How many copies of the trig functions (at 20 or 30 KB each) do you really want on your Pilot?
Many thanks to Ian Goldberg of Berkeley's ISAAC Group for the excellent treatise on Pilot shared libraries that made this project possible. You should read and understand that document completely before you even think about making any changes to this library, but it's not really necessary if you just want to call the library from your program.
Note: Due to a fundamental constraint of the NewFloatMgr.lib floating point emulation library, MathLib requires version 2.0 or greater of the OS. The problem is that the floating point emulation library (which must be used in order to do IEEE 754 math under OS 1.x) requires the global variable __SoftFPSCR__, and SysLib-style shared libraries can't have any global variables. GLib-style libraries are supposed to support globals, but can only be built or used with GCC, and I needed this library to be usable by applications written with the CodeWarrior compiler (namely MathPad and Parens). If anyone comes up with a way to build and call shared libraries using CodeWarrior on my Win95 system that will let me use the NewFloatMgr routines under OS 1.x, please let me know.
MathLib is packaged as a standard .PRC Pilot resource database, and can be installed on your Pilot just like any regular application program. Just use your install tool or equivalent to load it into your Pilot before using any programs that call it. To remove MathLib from your Pilot, just use the standard Memory application built into the Pilot ROM to delete it. Ian mentions in his writeup that he has to delete an older version of a library before installing a new one, but I haven't had any problems with that. It might depend on what software you use to synchronize, but the standard Win95 HotSync program has always worked OK for me.
Each program which uses a shared library is responsible for gracefully failing if the library's not available when it runs. If they try and run anyway, they'll simply cause a system reset as soon as they try to call a library routine, but this shouldn't hurt anything.
MathLib.prc is a derivative work of the libm.a math library that comes with GCC 2.7.2.2. It's distributed in accordance with the GNU Library General Public License, which explicitly gives you the right to make use of the library from within your own programs, without any effect on anybody's rights regarding your software. If you write a program using GCC, calling a function from libm.a does not automatically make your program fall under the Public License. In exactly the same way, calling a function from MathLib.prc does not make your program come under the Public License, either. The GNU Library General Public License applies only to MathLib itself, and not to those programs which make use of MathLib. Your software is not considered a derivative work of MathLib.prc.
Let's see if I can stress this a bit more strongly for all those barracks lawyers out there. To quote the holy LGPL:
A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is called a "work that uses the Library". Such a work, in isolation, is not a derivative work of the Library, and therefore falls outside the scope of this License.
And regarding distribution:
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Library with the Library (or with a work based on the Library) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
And finally, a quote from an email from the great Richard Stallman himself (prompted by some idiot who was trying to force a MathLib user to publish his source code):
If MathLib was released under the Library GPL, then it is permitted to link it into proprietary (non-free) programs, following the rules of the Library GPL of course.
OK, people? I don't want to get off on a rant, but... (cue spotlight) I'm sick and tired of catching grief from schmucks who assume that anything which in any way comes into contact with free OSF code must automatically be free also. Quit trying to use MathLib as an excuse for extortion of other people's hard work. The time and effort that I and other programmers have to spend responding to you idiots' accusations discourages the very use of OSF code that the GPL is supposed to promote, and would have been much better spent on improving our programs. "Oooh! He uses MathLib so now he has to give me his source code!" WRONG. Yeesh! Get a life and go create something constructive instead of spending your time trashing other people's efforts. (cue stage lights)
Whew. I feel better now.
You may distribute a copy of MathLib.prc with your application, so long as you clearly indicate in your documentation that MathLib is not part of your program, but is independently available free software which you are simply providing as a convenience; and that you inform the user where and how they may obtain the latest version and full source code. A paragraph similar to the following is acceptable (spell out the URL if not using HTML):
Or, you may simply state that your program requires MathLib in order to work, and inform them where they may obtain it for themselves.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Library General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public License along with this program; see file COPYING.TXT. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA