Integers and other numbers [was Re: dlw_int review]

From: helmut.zeisel_at_[hidden]
Date: 2001-09-27 12:23:33

--- In boost_at_y..., "Eric Ford" <eford_at_m...> wrote:
> 
> > It would be nice if someone (or several people) with a strong
> numerics 
> > background could write a "big picture" roadmap that fits a bunch
of 
> > numerical type together into a coherent plan.  The ones in the
C++ 
> > standard, the C standard, and Boost as it stands today, but also
> with slots 
> > open for big integers, fixed point types, and other possibilities.
> 
> I'm not really sure what you have in mind.  In any case, I don't
think
> I'm qualified to write down the big picture, but I'd be happy to
look
> over a draft and tell someone they left out a piece that's near and
> dear to my domains.  
> 
> If you're thinking primarily of numeric types, there's lots more...
> rationals, arbitrary precision, dimensioned quantities, quantities
> with units, and scaled quantities.  Not to mention types that
involve
> multiple elements...  
> 

My personal roadmap would be the following:

1) big int - this is what I am currently working on

2) rational: boost::rational exists already

3) fixed point

4) floating point with fixed, but aribitrary precision

3 and 4 hopefully can be based on the currently growing
big int class.

Other types like dimensioned quantities, std::complex,
quaternions, polynomials etc.
are more or less independent from that roadmap
and might probably have a template parameter for
the respective numeric type.

Helmut