Hello John, Tuesday, August 1, 2006, 5:19:37 AM, you wrote:
This has made me wonder whether we are better off getting rid of the small integer optimization and turning Integer into a straight unboxable ForeignPtr to a GMP number. this would also mean we could use the standard GMP that comes with the system since ForeignPtr will take care of GCing Integers itself. This was my plan with jhc, but at the moment, Integer is still just intmax_t.
Another option would be to keep the small integer optimization but make it CPR
data Integer = Integer Int# !(Ptr MPZ)
where if the Ptr is NULL then the Int# contains the value...
John, Integer values in many cases used just to keep small numbers which can be larger than 2^32 (2^64) in rare cases. For example, "type FileSize = Integer" used in IO library. so it's important to keep operations on small Integers fast and use minimum amount of memory how about: data Integer = S# Int# | L# !(ForeignPtr MPZ) ? -- Best regards, Bulat mailto:Bulat.Ziganshin@gmail.com