Hi,
Just thinking out loud... is there ever any use case for big-integer exponents?
Yes, those are very large numbers :-). I would say that int32 exponent should be good enough (I don't mean that it should be used). I am eager to see applications of int64 exponent range.
Mathematics has some need to work with really very big numbers. That is whenever you try to disprove a hypothesis like e.g. the Rieman hypothesis by experimentally searching for a case where it does not hold. That is nothing I am doing, but it to my mind when I thought about where to use exponents bigger than int32. Is there any reason not to make the exponent type a template parameter so that the user can chose arbittrarily instead of trying to anticipate future uses of the library? Christof -- okunah gmbh Software nach Maß Werner-Haas-Str. 8 www.okunah.de 86153 Augsburg cd@okunah.de Registergericht Augsburg Geschäftsführer Augsburg HRB 21896 Christof Donat UStID: DE 248 815 055