Re: Nearly finished (re)integrating GMP for bignums.

[Rob Browning]

Marius Vollmer <address@hidden> writes:

> Aren't we already using 64 bits for scm_t_bits on some platforms (such
> as the Alpha and IA64)?  Even if we don't, code should use
> SIZEOF_SCM_T_BITS, etc.

I'm not sure.  It's been a while since I was messing around with guile
on a 64 bit platform (last time was porting issues on an alpha and
ia64).  I can check...

>> With respect to random.c, we have a pluggable random number system,
>> and ATM the bignum randoms are computed using the
>> "get_32_random_bits()" function provided by the random state object.
>> However GMP has its own random number generators, including ones for
>> bignums.  Any thoughts on how we should handle this?
>
> I think we should use the GMP generators unless they are not as good
> as ours.  But I doubt that.

Hmm, OK.  Well for now I may see about just trivially integrating the
gmp bignums into the current "plugin" system which only allows for a
generator to generate 32 random bits at a time.  If I do, I'll list
"coming back later to see if we should rearrange things more
thoroughly" as a TODO item.

-- 
Rob Browning
rlb @defaultvalue.org, @linuxdevel.com, and @debian.org
Previously @cs.utexas.edu
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