[Python-Dev] Google Summer of Code proposal: improvement of long int and adding new types/modules.

[Alex Martelli]

On Apr 21, 2006, at 7:46 AM, Aahz wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 21, 2006, Mateusz Rukowicz wrote:
>>
>> Next thing I would add is multi precision floating point type to
>> the core and fraction type, which in some cases highly improves
>> operations, which would have to be done using floating point instead.
>> Of course, math module will need update to support multi precision
>> floating points, and with that, one could compute asin or any other
>> function provided with math with precision limited by memory and
>> time.  It would be also good idea to add function which computes pi
>> and exp with unlimited precision.  And last thing - It would be nice
>> to add some number-theory functions to math module (or new one), like
>> prime-tests, factorizations etc.
>
> To echo and amplify what Guido said: an excellent project would be to
> rewrite the decimal module in C.  Another option would be to pick  
> up and
> enhance either of the GMP wrappers:
>
> http://gmpy.sourceforge.net/
> http://www.egenix.com/files/python/mxNumber.html
>
> That would also deal with your suggestion of rational numbers.

GMP is covered by LGPL, so must any such derivative work (presumably  
ruling it out for embedding in Python's core itself). That being  
said, as gmpy's author, I'd be enthusiastically happy to mentor  
anybody who wants to work on gmpy or other multiprecision arithmetic  
extension for Python.


Alex