FACTOR(6)

💖 factor, primes — the FACTOR(6) bestie era 💖

okay so welcome to the FACTOR(6) Games Manual page, bestie! this is the whole glow-up of the factor and primes utilities, and we are keeping every detail because that's just how we do it. 💅✨

✨ NAME ✨

factor, primes — factor a number, generate primes. literally the whole name section, no cap. 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

factor [-h] [number ...]
primes [-h] [start [stop]]

• -h — it appears in both synopsis lines, and the page gives no further description for it, so we are not inventing one. 💅

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

factor is the utility that factors positive integers. when a number gets factored, it is printed, followed by a :, and then the list of factors on a single line. factors are listed in ascending order, and each one is preceded by a space. if a factor divides a value more than once, it will be printed more than once — yes, literally more than once, bestie. 🫶

when factor is invoked with one or more arguments, each argument will be factored. when it is invoked with no arguments, factor reads numbers, one per line, from standard input until end of file or 0 is entered or an error occurs. leading white-space and empty lines are ignored. 🙈

numbers may be preceded by a single +. numbers can be either decimal or hexadecimal strings where the longest leading substring is used. numbers are terminated by a non-digit character (such as a newline). if the string contains only decimal digits, it is treated as a decimal representation for a number. a hexadecimal string can contain an optional 0x or 0X prefix. after a number is read, it is factored. periodt. 🔥

primes prints primes in ascending order, one per line, starting at or above start and continuing until, but not including, stop. the start value must be at least 0 and not greater than stop. the stop value must not be greater than the maximum. the default and maximum value of stop is 18446744073709551615. iconic number, honestly. 👑

when primes is invoked with no arguments, start is read from standard input and stop is taken to be the maximum. the start value may be preceded by a single +. the start value is terminated by a non-digit character (such as a newline). 🌈

🚨 DIAGNOSTICS 🚨

these are the exact diagnostic lines, bestie — keep them as-is:

negative numbers aren't permitted
illegal numeric format
start value must be less than stop value
Result too large

🐛 BUGS 🐛

real talk: factor cannot handle the “10 most wanted” factor list, and primes will not get you a world record. that's the bug note, periodt. 💀

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source: Debian, date: January 12, 2020, manual: FACTOR(6) — mwah, bye bestie 🫶✨