`rational' is an R package containing a few small functions to find
numerical rational approximations using a continued fraction method and
is based on the corresponding S package `rational' by Bill Venables.  It
is Copyright (C) 1998 by Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at>.

It contains the following functions:

   rational(x) is like round(x,k) except that the rounding is done to
	a nearby rational approximation to x rather than to a fixed
	number of decimal places.  It can remove round-off error in some
	cases and is useful, like round(), for enhancing displays, etc.

   fractions(x) returns the same result as round(x) but as a character
	string in ordinary fraction form.  fractions(0.6666667) = "2/3"
	Useful for levels in categories and tables and for revealing
	patterns in highly structured arrays with rational entries.

   rat(x,...) is a low level function used by rational() and fractions().

`rational' is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any
later version.

`rational' 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 General Public License
for more details.

A copy of the GNU General Public License is available on the World Wide
Web at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html.  You can also obtain it by
writing to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge,
MA 02139, USA.


Please send remarks, comments ... to KH.

KH <Kurt.Hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at> 1998/02/24
