The Num library for arithmetic on big integers and rationals
Overview
This library implements arbitrary-precision arithmetic on big integers and on rationals.
This is a legacy library. It used to be part of the core OCaml distribution (in otherlibs/num) but is now distributed separately. New applications that need arbitrary-precision arithmetic should use the Zarith library (https://github.com/ocaml/Zarith) instead of the Num library, and older applications that already use Num are encouraged to switch to Zarith. Zarith delivers much better performance than Num and has a nicer API.
Usage
To use the bignum library from your programs, it is recommended to use ocamlfind:
ocamlfind ocamlc -package num ...
ocamlfind ocamlopt -package num ...
Alternatively, you can do
ocamlc <options> nums.cma <.cmo and .ml files>
ocamlopt <options> nums.cmxa <.cmx and .ml files>
For toplevel use, just issue the commands
#use "topfind";;
#package "num";;
or
#load "nums.cma";;
Documentation
The following modules are documented in their interfaces:
-
Big_int: operations on arbitrary-precision integers -
Num: operations on arbitrary-precision numbers (integers and rationals) -
Arith_status: flags that control rational arithmetic
More documentation on the functions provided in this library can be found in The CAML Numbers Reference Manual by Valérie Ménissier-Morain, INRIA technical report 141, july 1992, http://hal.inria.fr/docs/00/07/00/27/PDF/RT-0141.pdf
Compilation and installation
Prerequisites: OCaml version 4.04 or newer.
make all
make test
make install
make clean
History
This library is derived from Valérie Ménissier-Morain's implementation of rational arithmetic for Caml V3.1. Xavier Leroy did the Caml Light port. Victor Manuel Gulias Fernandez did the initial Caml Special Light / OCaml port. Pierre Weis did most of the maintenance and bug fixing.
Initially, the low-level big integer operations were provided by the BigNum package developed by Bernard Serpette, Jean Vuillemin and Jean-Claude Hervé (INRIA and Digital PRL). License issues forced us to replace the BigNum package. The current implementation of low-level big integer operations is due to Xavier Leroy.