>>>>> "DS" == Dan Sugalski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
DS> 'Kay, here's the final version of this.
DS> struct bigint {
DS> void *buffer;
DS> UV length;
DS> IV exponent;
DS> UV flags;
DS> }
DS> =begin question
DS> Should we scrap the buffer pointer and just tack the buffer on the end
DS> of the structure? Saves a level of indirection, but means if we need
DS> to make the buffer bigger we have to adjust anything pointing to it.
i think the indirection is good for that reason. tracking all refs to
this structure is a lot of work for any resize operations.
DS> =end question
DS> The C<num_buffer> pointer points to the buffer holding the actual
s/num_//
DS> and yes, this looks identical to the bigint structure. This isn't
DS> accidental. Upgrading a bigint to a bignum should be quick.
question:
can you declare at the language level a scalar to be a bigint or bignum?
that means that native format is never used. the reason might be
something like a fixed point decimal value for money with 2 decimal
places. the bigint/float thingies imply decimal math and that also means
a decimal math library. this came up in #perl in a discussion about
bcd. i think a true decimal math package for this would be useful and
faster than a char string based one.
uri
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