GCD in standard library?

[Raymond Hettinger]

> On Wed, 12 Mar 2003 20:08:18 +0000, Steven Taschuk wrote:
> > Quoth Blake Garretson:
>
> >> def gcd(x,y):
> >>   if x % y == 0: return y
> >>   else: return gcd(y,x%y)
>
> > I for one haven't needed this in Python yet, but if I did I'd do
> > it this way:
> > def gcd(a, b):
> > while b:
> > a, b = b, a % b
> > return abs(a)
> > which (1) avoids the unnecessary recursion,
>
> i suppose it's pointless to ask for python to become a properly
> tail-recursive language then?

Depends on who you ask.
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Raymond Hettinger