Re: [boost] Infinite precision integer draft

From: Dave Steffen (dgsteffen_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-05-26 18:32:45

Pedro Lamarão writes:
 > Maarten Kronenburg escreveu:
 > > Gerhard,
 > > Negating an unsigned_integer that is
 > > not zero is like taking the square root
 > > from a negative value, or dividing
 > > an integer by zero:
 > > an exception is thrown.
 > 
 > Why introduce this C++ exception for "integer division by zero"?
 > Why not simply allow the implementation to hit the corresponding
 > hardware exception?

 FWIW, my $.02:  there are two options.

 A) "Do as the ints do" (following Scott Meyers' advice), and hit
 hardware exceptions or specify some particular behavor; negating an
 unsigned int might be a no-op, or might generate some extremely large
 positive integer, or...

 B) "Do as we wish the ints did" and generate exceptions.

 I'd vote for A), not because I don't like exceptions, but because
 it's more consistent with the rest of the language, and also because
 there are situations where mathematical code needs to be _guaranteed_
 not to throw anything.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave Steffen, Ph.D.       Fools ignore complexity.
Software Engineer IV      Pragmatists suffer it.
Numerica Corporation      Some can avoid it.
ph [phone] x27     Geniuses remove it.
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dgsteffen_at_[hidden]     
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