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.