On 20 March 2010 11:27, Ankit Malpani <ankit.malpani@gmail.com> wrote:

3. i have no prior experience of using Boost libraries, will this prove to be a problem with regard to this project?

Experience with the Boost libraries themselves isn't strictly the issue, but you do need to be comfortable in Boost-style library design, which I haven't seen outside the periphery of Boost. My personal vision of a Boost BigInt project involves both - A policy-based backend for the numeric operations themselves - An expression template frontend, probably based off Boost.Proto There are many C-based BigInt libraries already, so I think Boost is best situated to offer not yet another one, but instead an elegant C++ wrapper to provide easy of use on top of existing efficiency. I can't judge your comfort level with those concepts.

Hi, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ankit Malpani" <ankit.malpani@gmail.com> To: <boost@lists.boost.org> Sent: Saturday, March 20, 2010 4:27 PM Subject: [boost] queries regarding the BigInt project @ GSoc 2010

hello all!

i am really interested in developing the proposed BigInt library for Boost as a part of GSoC this summer . Here are a couple of queries i have.

1. With regard to the data structure for handling such integers - are we looking at bit-level implementation(less space and probably more execution time) or digit level manipulation (more space - and probably less execution time). i.e. for an n-digit number is it ok to use up [n/2 to n] bytes of space or necessary to stick to log n amount of space for a BigInt object.

I think that some application will have space constraints and other performances constraints. So why not provide both, and let the user choose the best adapted to her/his needs?

1.1 The arbitrary precision calculations could be implemented using the BigInt data-structure along with a scaling factor variable

I would concentrate on integer types, and let arbitrary precision numbers out.

2. what all are the expected functions of this library - basic arithmetic(add, subtract ,multiply, divide, modulo, powers) , relational(<=, <, >,>=, !=, ==) , bitwise operation ,and maybe added functionality like gcd and lcm are some of the things i can think of, please do add on to the list .

I suppose that all the C++ integer functions will be enough for a GSoc project.

3. i have no prior experience of using Boost libraries, will this prove to be a problem with regard to this project?

Please do refine this design and point out all the flaws in my understanding. Hope to get your replies soon

Best, Vicente