Function return values in GMP? (James Wheaton)

[Jim White]

I agree with the other responses.  GMP is a library,
not a package.  It's primary concern is the provision
of arithmetic services, on which applications or
packages can be based.

Issues such as temp variable management,
instantiation, etc, tend to have different optimal
strategies in different application contexts, so GMP
sensibly keeps the interface simple, and leaves most 
non-arithmetic issues to you the programmer.

The key to customising your particular GMP application
environment to your needs is to write your own wrapper
functions, ie. develop your own interface library. 

This can be done incrementally, you don't need to
write a complete package, just add appropriate
functionality piece by piece to make your application
programming easier, and eventually you'll get the
interface library to a point whereby your application
programs don't need to make any direct calls to GMP at
all.


Jim White
ANU, Canberra