PCCfactor.pl - Provide some convenience routines for factoring quadratics.
The subroutine factoringMethods takes arguments ($a[0], $a[1], $b[0], $b[1], $var[0], $var[1]) corresponding to a factored polynomial (a[0] $var[0]+b[0] $var[1])(a[1] $var[0]+b[1] $var[1]). The terms @a and @b should be integers, and doctored in the problem code so that gcd(@a) and gcd(@b) equal 1. @var should be variables that have been added to the context. $var[1] is optional.
The output includes various methods to factor the polynomial, including:
number sense method
formula method (perfect squares and difference of squares)
ac method
guess-and-check with generic rectangles method
If $var[1] is omitted and $var[0] is something like 'xy', then both letters should be variables added to the context, and the expanded (unfactored) versions of polynomials will be shown like
Ax^2y^2 + Bxy + Cinstead of
A(xy)^2 + Bxy + Cand the factorization is (a[0] $var[2] $var[3] + b[0])(a[1] $var[2] $var[3] + b[1]) where $var[2] and $var[3] are the individual letters form the given $var[0].