On p-adic differentiability

A p-adic-valued function on the p-adic integers has a continuous derivative, Mahler showed, whenever its interpolation coefficients decay at a certain rate. It is shown here that Mahler's decay condition is equivalent to the strict differentiability of the function. There is a discussion of the Banach-space structure of the space of strictly differentiable functions. It is shown, moreover, that there is no rate of decay common to all functions with continuous derivative. Specifically, given any decay condition, there exists a function with derivative identically zero, whose interpolation coefficients decay more slowly.