Hello,

2015-01-25 4:01 UTC+01:00, Álinson S Xavier <[email protected]>:
> When using the xgcd function with rational numbers (that turn out to be
> integers), Sage returns non-integer numbers.
>
>   sage: xgcd(Rational(17),Rational(2))
>   (1, 1/17, 0)
>   sage: xgcd(17,2)
>   (1, 1, -8)
>
> I certainly did not expect this behaviour.
> Is this a bug? I am using version 6.4.1.

The thing is that the definition of the gcd depends on the ambient
ring and not only on the numbers

  sage: xgcd(4,2)
  (2, 0, 1)
  sage: xgcd(Rational(4),Rational(2))   # same numbers!!
  (1, 1/4, 0)

And from the documentation

  xgcd(a,b)
  Return a triple "(g,s,t)" such that g = s * a+t * b =
  gcd(a,b).

The above statement is not complete since it should have been more
precise about where belong the elements (g,s,t). Anyway, the answer
you got is perfectly valid and it would actually make confusion to not
return the trivial answer (1, 1/a, 0) in the case of fields.

Do you still think this is a bug?

Best,
Vincent

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