GCD in standard library?

[Andrew Bennetts]

On Wed, Mar 12, 2003 at 10:44:35PM -0500, Jp Calderone wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 12, 2003 at 08:08:18PM -0700, Steven Taschuk wrote:
> > 
> > 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, (2) gives the right
> > answer for zero operands, and (3) gives a predictable and
> > defensible, if not obviously right, answer for negative operands.
> 
>   FWIW, tuple packing/unpacking is wasting time in that loop.  I'd do it
> with a temporary variable, even though it looks nicer without one :)

Nah, leave it as is, and let Psyco optimise it for you :)

-Andrew.