Public mpz_ptr and mpz_srcptr

[Torbjorn Granlund]

nisse at lysator.liu.se (Niels Möller) writes:

  gmp.h includes the following:
  
    /* Types for function declarations in gmp files.  */
    /* ??? Should not pollute user name space with these ??? */
    typedef const __mpz_struct *mpz_srcptr;
    typedef __mpz_struct *mpz_ptr;
  
  I'm afraid there's no better type for users, when writing code which
  returns a pointer to an mpz variables. E.g,
  
    mpz_t
    foo (mpz_t x)
    {
      return x;
    }
  
  seems to give a compilation error (returning an array). While
  
    mpz_ptr
    foo (mpz_ptr x)
    {
      return x;
    }
  
  should work fine. Or otherwise, handling pointers in any variable which
  isn't a formal parameter to a function. Using mpz_t * (pointer to an
  array) isn't a good alternative, since you'd get a harsh warning
  whenever passing such a pointer to a GMP function expecting an mpz_ptr.
  
  Or is there any better way to write the return type which I have missed?
  I take it MP_INT * and __mpz_struct * are both discouraged.
  
The intended way of returning mpz_t variables is doing it like GMP does,
i.e., pass the destination mpz_t variables  as parameters.

I chose to not provide mpz_ptr since I think it would be prone to
errors.  I expect code like this to be created:

mpz_ptr
foo (mpz_t a, mpz_t b)
{
  mpz_t c;
  mpz_init (c);
  mpz_add (c, a, b);
  return c;
}

-- 
Torbjörn