have a look at the most important classes in the class hierarchy and
some of the relations among the classes:
+@ifnotinfo
@image{classhierarchy}
+@end ifnotinfo
The abstract classes shown here (the ones without drop-shadow) are of no
interest for the user. They are used internally in order to avoid code
and exponent and some atomic leaves of symbols and numbers in this
fashion:
+@ifnotinfo
@image{repnaive}
+@end ifnotinfo
@cindex pair-wise representation
However, doing so results in a rather deeply nested tree which will
having a numeric exponent and a possibly complicated base, the tree
becomes much more flat:
+@ifnotinfo
@image{reppair}
+@end ifnotinfo
The number @code{3} above the symbol @code{d} shows that @code{mul}
objects are treated similarly where the coefficients are interpreted as
@math{2*d^3*(4*a+5*b-3)}:
@end ifnottex
+@ifnotinfo
@image{repreal}
+@end ifnotinfo
@cindex radical
This also allows for a better handling of numeric radicals, since