Generating function

In mathematics, a generating function is a way of encoding an infinite sequence of numbers (an) by treating them as the coefficients of a power series. This formal power series is the generating function. Unlike an ordinary series, this formal series is allowed to diverge, meaning that the generating function is not always a true function and the 'variable' is actually an indeterminate. Generating functions were first introduced by Abraham de Moivre in 1730, in order to solve the general linear recurrence problem. One can generalize to formal series in more than one indeterminate, to encode information about arrays of numbers indexed by several natural numbers. In mathematics, a generating function is a way of encoding an infinite sequence of numbers (an) by treating them as the coefficients of a power series. This formal power series is the generating function. Unlike an ordinary series, this formal series is allowed to diverge, meaning that the generating function is not always a true function and the 'variable' is actually an indeterminate. Generating functions were first introduced by Abraham de Moivre in 1730, in order to solve the general linear recurrence problem. One can generalize to formal series in more than one indeterminate, to encode information about arrays of numbers indexed by several natural numbers. There are various types of generating functions, including ordinary generating functions, exponential generating functions, Lambert series, Bell series, and Dirichlet series; definitions and examples are given below. Every sequence in principle has a generating function of each type (except that Lambert and Dirichlet series require indices to start at 1 rather than 0), but the ease with which they can be handled may differ considerably. The particular generating function, if any, that is most useful in a given context will depend upon the nature of the sequence and the details of the problem being addressed. Generating functions are often expressed in closed form (rather than as a series), by some expression involving operations defined for formal series. These expressions in terms of the indeterminate x may involve arithmetic operations, differentiation with respect to x and composition with (i.e., substitution into) other generating functions; since these operations are also defined for functions, the result looks like a function of x. Indeed, the closed form expression can often be interpreted as a function that can be evaluated at (sufficiently small) concrete values of x, and which has the formal series as its series expansion; this explains the designation 'generating functions'. However such interpretation is not required to be possible, because formal series are not required to give a convergent series when a nonzero numeric value is substituted for x. Also, not all expressions that are meaningful as functions of x are meaningful as expressions designating formal series; for example, negative and fractional powers of x are examples of functions that do not have a corresponding formal power series. Generating functions are not functions in the formal sense of a mapping from a domain to a codomain. Generating functions are sometimes called generating series, in that a series of terms can be said to be the generator of its sequence of term coefficients. The ordinary generating function of a sequence an is When the term generating function is used without qualification, it is usually taken to mean an ordinary generating function. If an is the probability mass function of a discrete random variable, then its ordinary generating function is called a probability-generating function. The ordinary generating function can be generalized to arrays with multiple indices. For example, the ordinary generating function of a two-dimensional array am, n (where n and m are natural numbers) is The exponential generating function of a sequence an is