Re: [boost] Interest in an arbitrary precision library?

From: Joel Eidsath (jeidsath_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-09-11 07:40:54

>I didn't see a cost savings (or penalty) there.  
>
I don't even know why I need to say this.  For one thing, just look the 
GCD call at the creation of every boost::rational.  You must understand 
the costs involved there when numbers get big.

>It does something akin to
>the built-in floating-point types on common platforms (which are IEEE-754)
>with a binary mantissa and exponent.  It's a tradeoff, giving up arbitrary
>denominators for quicker manipulation.
>  
>
Explain how you'd implement the square root function for a 
boost::rational type class.  (Or a host of other functions.)  Lots of 
calls to set_precision, I expect.

Joel Eidsath