Integers and other numbers [was Re: dlw_int review]

From: helmut.zeisel_at_[hidden]
Date: 2001-09-27 13:51:16

--- In boost_at_y..., "Eric Ford" <eford_at_m...> wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> The important thing is that the various types need to be able to
> work
> with each other.  Things like a matrix of complex numbers with
> dimensions of time, units of seconds, implemented in terms of a
> fixed
> precission floating point type need to work.

Yes.

But this is not specific to numeric types but true for
the whole library.

E.g., for me it is quite a lot of work
to make the formating of bigint consistent to iostream.

OTOH, the interface boost::rational requires from
bigint is (with only one exception: rational_cast)
naturally fulfiled from
what I considered to be the correct interface for big int.

Anyway, when we proceed on the road,
it will be necessary from time to time to adapt the interface
of one class to satisfy the needs of some other class.

Helmut