[boost] Arbitrary precision arithmetic

Subject: [boost] Arbitrary precision arithmetic
From: Scott Johnson (engineerscotty_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-08-17 16:40:07

Greetings.

This is my first post to the mailing list, so I'll try not to act stupid.
:)

The recent release of Boost (1.39.0), in the boost::rational library
documentation, broadly hints at (and expresses a fond wish for) an
arbitrary-precision integer ("bignum") library; however none currently
exists within Boost.  There are numerous such libraries out in the wild
(many targeted towards C); though some of them are under incompatible
licenses.

(One interesting starting point would be libtommath, by Tom St. Denis; it
appears to be a pretty robust and functional C library; which now has a C++
wrapper--albeit one that doesn't meet boost standards.  It also contains
numerous other useful number-theoretic functions, many of which appear to
not be dependeing on the underlying bigint type.  And it's in the public
domain, or at least appears to be...)

Searching through the mailing list, I've seen numerous references to
creating such a thing, some of them dating back nearly ten years--but none
yet seems to exist.  This is something, I think, which would be Really
Useful to add to boost.  I wasn't able to locate any current boost project
or proposal to create such a thing--though it's certainly possible I looked
up the wrong keyword(s).

So, my possibly impertinent newbie question:  Is anyone (seriously) working
on such a thing, for inclusion in boost?  Are there any nasty (political)
obstacles to such a thing being added?

Thanks!

-- 
engineer_scotty (no, not that one)
If life gives you lemons, drink Hefeweizen