Re: [boost] Integral type with no upper limit?

Subject: Re: [boost] Integral type with no upper limit?
From: Barend Gehrels (barend_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-05-27 03:18:28

>>
>>> Perhaps Boost shouldn't reinvent the wheel? There's already an open-source
>>> arbitrary precision arithmetic library: http://gmplib.org/
>>>       
>> Which says:
>>        GMP is distributed under the GNU LGPL. This license makes the library
>> free to use, share, and improve, and allows you to pass on the result. The
>> license gives freedoms, but also sets firm restrictions on the use with
>> non-free programs.
>>
>> There are people using Boost for both free and non-free programs.
>> It's my understanding that we (Boost) want to continue to support all of
>> them.
>>
>>     
>
> Personally, I think Boost would be best served providing some sort of
> expression template wrapper into which different arbitrary-precision
> numbers could be plugged.
>   
We (Bruno and me) are creating exactly this thing. It will be finished 
soon. We will use it in our other library, GGL, but we develop it 
separately.
> That would mean far less work to get something usable, as it could use
> the GMP implementation initially.  
We do GMP,  CLN and IEEE (so float/double/long double). So the code 
using the library will be independant of which numeric type is used, and 
can use it also for standard numeric types transparently.
> Then a BSL version of the
> implementation could be developed incrementally, while non-floss users
> could license some implementation to use with the Boost interface.
>
>   
Regards, Barend

p.s. I intentionally send this to the other list because it is a 
"developers subject" and because my messages don't come through.