Alaric Snell-Pym scripsit:

> I think it's perhaps difficult to define what "bignum support" is,
> which means that any argument about whether an implementation provides
> bignums and whether a library requires them is doomed to end up
> without a useful conclusion.

Actually it's not.  Bignum support means that the arithmetic operations
of Scheme (other than /) are closed on the exact integers.  That is,
when two exact integers are added, the result may be an exact integer
or the report of an implementation restriction, but on no account an
inexact number.

> Perhaps any given library or program really needs to say "I need exact
> integers in the range X to Y", and implementations either accept that
> module/program or don't, and there's some reasonable lower limit of
> range that can be assumed without bothering to ask; this might be
> defined in terms of other aspects of the implementation ("enough to
> index any vector that can be created on the machine") as well as an
> actual numeric range ("-2^29..2^29-1").

If bignums don't pass, there will be a ballot about the minimal values
of most-{positive,negative}-exact-integer.

--
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan@ccil.org
Let's face it: software is crap. Feature-laden and bloated, written under
tremendous time-pressure, often by incapable coders, using dangerous
languages and inadequate tools, trying to connect to heaps of broken or
obsolete protocols, implemented equally insufficiently, running on
unpredictable hardware -- we are all more than used to brokenness.
                   --Felix Winkelmann

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