---
name: "cadabra"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "cadabra"
version: "1.46-6"
release: "Debian 12 (Bookworm)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/cadabra"
---

# cadabra(1)

field-theory motivated computer algebra system

## NAME

cadabra - field-theory motivated computer algebra system

## SYNOPSIS

**cadabra**

## DESCRIPTION

**Cadabra** is a computer algebra system for the manipulation of tensorial expressions.

The output of cadabra is either plain text or UTF8 encoded Unicode (see the environment variables described below). The line-breaking properties of the latter are used to wrap large expressions are reasonable points. In addition to the standard output, cadabra can print status information, which is wrapped in special \<status\>...\</status\> blocks.

## OPTIONS

- **--silent**

  Disables all output, except for output generated by the @print algorithm.

- **--loginput**

  Copy the input into the log file.

- **--input filename**

  Read the indicated file as input before switching to console input.

- **--prompt string**

  Set the prompt of the interactive session to the indicated string.

## ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The following variables toggle various features on or off, depending on whether the variable is set or not:

- **CDB\_PRINTSTAR**

  Display a star to indicate products. Without this setting, a  space is used.

- **CDB\_USE\_UTF8**

  Use UTF8 encoding for output. This in particular will introduce non-breakable spaces to group objects together, as well as zero-width non-breakable spaces to prevent line-breaks after brackets, underscore and caret symbols.  When this variable is not set, the output will be plain ASCII without any special symbols.

## SEE ALSO

[**xcadabra**(1)](/xcadabra/1.md).

See the web page at **http://www.aei.mpg.de/~peekas/cadabra/** for binaries, example calculations and the full manual.

## AUTHORS

Kasper Peeters \<kasper.peeters@aei.mpg.de\>