Re: [boost] [xint] Boost.XInt formal review

Subject: Re: [boost] [xint] Boost.XInt formal review
From: Chad Nelson (chad.thecomfychair_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-03-06 09:14:14

On Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:22:51 +0300
Ivan Sorokin <sorokin_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On 06.03.2011 05:23, Chad Nelson wrote:
>
>>> I believe that arbitrary precision arithmetic library is very
>>> useful. But I don't think that in it's current status XInt is
>>> appropriate for boost.
>
> After your reply I changes my mind. As I see you had considered all
> my suggestions long before I posted them. If they really lead to 
> unavoidable performance penalty I think current implementation is a
> good trade-off.
>
> I vote for inclusion XInt into boost.

Thank you (again) for your comments.

>>> One more thought about "secure" option. There are no standard
>>> containers with this option. I think either both standard containers
>>> and integer_t should have such option or both shouldn't have. This
>>> is yet another argument for container parametrization.
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand your argument. Are you saying that because
>> there are no standard containers with a zero-memory-before-releasing
>> option, that the library shouldn't provide one either?
>
> Yes. Why integer_t should be an exception?

The contents of standard containers rarely need to be protected from
recovery and analysis. The contents of a large integer may well be used
for cryptography, and hold sensitive information like private keys, so
they might. That was the rationale for the feature.

(For some reason, your messages don't include a reply-to field in the
header, so when I try to answer them, the reply always defaults to
going to you alone. The version of Thunderbird you're using doesn't
normally have that problem, so I'm not sure why it's happening.)
-- 
Chad Nelson
Oak Circle Software, Inc.
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