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1.1.1 Basic Tutorial for CoCoA-5

Use the command ciao; to get out of CoCoA-5. It is important to type the semicolon ";" after the word "ciao". As a rule, you should put a semicolon after every CoCoA-5 command. After receiving the ciao command, it may occasionally take a few seconds for CoCoA-5 to fully terminate itself.

If CoCoA-5 is busy computing, it will not heed any further commands (including ciao;) until the computation ends. When CoCoA-5 is ready for a new command it prints out a prompt; if the previous input was incomplete, this is indicated by a different prompt.

If CoCoA-5 is taking too long with a computation you may "interrupt" it (i.e. forcibly end it prematurely); it may take a few seconds for CoCoA-5 to react after you give the interrupt signal. CoCoA-5 will print a prompt when the computation has been stopped; it is then ready to receive new commands. The correct way to interrupt a CoCoA computation depends on the user interface (and operating system).

If you are still stuck inside CoCoA-5, you can try */ciao; instead; note the extra two characters "star" and "slash" at the start. You may need to type this twice.