I solved a system of equations. What does the output tell me?

### The Result of a computation

The line of commands

using HomotopyContinuation
@polyvar x y;
f = [x^2+2y, y^2-2])
result = solve(f)


gives the output.

Result with 4 solutions
==================================
• 4 non-singular solutions (2 real)
• 0 singular solutions (0 real)
• 4 paths tracked
• random seed: 902575


Let us look at this output in more detail: 4 non-singular solutions have been found, and 2 of them are real solutions.

The line “4 paths tracked” means that the algorithm tracked 4 paths with homotopy continuation. In the guide on How does it work? we explain in detail the meaning of this. If you are only interested in the solutions, however, you can skip this part.

### The entries of Result: PathResult

result is an array of the data structure PathResult). For instance, the first entry of result is

julia> result[1]
PathResult
=================
• return_code: success
• solution: Complex{Float64}[5.11415e-16+1.68179im, 1.41421-4.09132e-16im]
• accuracy: 3.434e-11
• residual: 2.894e-15
• condition_jacobian: 4.655e+00
• path_number: 1


The meaning of those entries is as follows:

• return_code: success means that the computation was successful.
• solution is the solution that was computed.
• accuracy is an approximation of $\Vert x-x^* \Vert$ where $x$ is the computed solution and $x^*$ is the true solution.
• residual is the value of the euclidean norm of $f(x)$, where $x$ is the computed solution.
• condition_jacobian is the condition number of the Jacobian of $f$ at the solution. A small value of this indicates that the numerical values are trustworthy.
• path_number the number of the path in the enumeration of all paths.