Thanks Joe, your reply was very helpful, I can just use "SmallGeneratingSet" when "MinimalGeneratingSet" fails.
Also, I have a question about terminology/semantics, I thought "MinimalGeneratingSet" was providing a set of generators such that no subset of them generates the entire group. Is it, on the contrary, returning a group with the fewest possible number of generators? (I was under the impression this would be called a "MinimumGeneratingSet"). On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 8:06 PM, Joe Bohanon <jbohan...@gmail.com> wrote: > Greg and Forum > > You might find this link particularly helpful here: > > http://mail.gap-system.org/pipermail/forum/2005/001109.html > > For non-solvable groups, you can (sort of) get what you want with > "SmallGeneratingSet". I would guess from the name that it's not necessarily > "Minimal", however, it can be very useful if you define a non-solvable > group, then try (for instance) asking for the center, and you get a subgroup > with 2 elements and 35 generators (I swear, I've seen that happen before). > In my experience, it does very well with permutation groups. With groups > you define yourself via generators and relations, anything goes. > > Joe > > On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Greg Tener <greg.d.te...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Dear GAP-forum, >> >> There might be a problem with MinimalGeneratingSet(). It seems not to >> work for a particular group, as shown in the following console >> session: >> >> """ >> gap> g := Group( [ (1,2,3,4,5), (1,2,3) ] ); >> Group([ (1,2,3,4,5), (1,2,3) ]) >> gap> MinimalGeneratingSet(g); >> Error, no method found! For debugging hints type ?Recovery from >> NoMethodFound >> Error, no 2nd choice method found for >> `IndependentGeneratorsOfAbelianGroup' on 1 arguments called from >> IndependentGeneratorsOfAbelianGroup( G ) called from >> <function>( <arguments> ) called from read-eval-loop >> Entering break read-eval-print loop ... >> you can 'quit;' to quit to outer loop, or >> you can 'return;' to continue >> """ >> >> Am I doing something wrong or could this be a bug? I know nothing >> about the internals of GAP so I cannot think why this would happen or >> how to fix it. >> >> Thanks, >> -Greg Tener- >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Forum mailing list >> Forum@mail.gap-system.org >> http://mail.gap-system.org/mailman/listinfo/forum > > _______________________________________________ Forum mailing list Forum@mail.gap-system.org http://mail.gap-system.org/mailman/listinfo/forum
