Questions.. Questions ..

[Torbjorn Granlund]

Lucien Hayen <l.hayen at tiscali.be> writes:

  1) I have version 4.1.4 but the macros __GMPF_BITS_TO_PREC and
     __GMPF_PREC_TO_BITS do not seem to exist.

These are internals.

  2) The expression sizeof(mp_limb_t) popped up so many times that
     inclusion of the exact numerical value (4 on my system) in gmp.h
     (as it is generated for each particular system) seems to be
     reasonable : #define GMP_LIMB_BYTES 4 (or whatever is the case).

It is there.

  3) The mpz_t structure element _mp_prec seems to have two 
     different and contradictory uses : at init time the number of
     limbs to use as precision, and the number of limbs allocated (-1).
     Later on this last meaning may be lost.
     Would it not be better to insert a _mp_alloc (or more clearly)
     a _mp_prec_max item in the mpf_t structure ? No more problems
     at clear time, no more mpf_set_prec_raw() accidents if the maximum
     precision is silently or otherwise enforced (warning on page 47 of
     the manual).

Keeping the structure small was an important design goal.
  
  4) Clearing in general does deallocate memory, but keeps a pointer
     to now non existing memory, or worse yet, to memory allocated
     after the clear operation for purposes that need not even be
     related to GMP uses. Why not setting _mp_d to NULL so that any
     accidental second clear operation will fail there and then. Now
     it can happen somewhere later, deeper in the software, and
     possibly difficult to find.
  
Could be done, I suppose.  I don't think it would solve much of
the inherent danger with C.

--
Torbjörn