----- Original Message ----- From: "Joel Young" <jdy@cs.brown.edu>

Feature Request:

Can support for alternate numerics packages be specified in the type declaration for big_integer rather then with a macro? I'd like to be able to have multiple implementations declared in the same program.

Joel

This can be done, but what is the reason to do use different types (besides easier testing)? My idea was to make one portable integer type, which could make use of the fastest library installed. That's why it uses macros to select its implementation. If you create a program which explicitly uses gmp or cln, then it's a nonportable program. Interaction between integers based on alternate numerics packages would be the most difficult. An obvious approach would be to use convert_integer_to_little_endian and convert_little_endian_to_integer, but it's not that efficient... If it's for testing only, where no interaction is needed, then it's quite easy. Macros would still be needed to really enable a library, because otherwise the code does not compile on a platform that hasn't got the library installed, but it is not too difficult to make the integer types parameterized on an enum telling which implementation to pick. Richard