[m-dev.] for review: big ints

[Peter Schachte]

On 04-Apr-98, Mark Anthony BROWN wrote:

>The data is not stored in a canonical form (eg i(1, []) represents
>the same thing as i(0, [])), and while this is not a problem per se,

Ah, the old -0 != +0 trick!

Actually, I think it is a problem per se, unless you supply an equality
predicate.  Otherwise, you won't be able to rely on unification as an equality
test.  Implied modes won't work.  All heck will break loose!

It might also be a good idea to supply functions for operations on mixed ints
and big ints.  Otherwise you won't be able to do obvious things like Integer+1
and Integer/2 in the obvious way.

-- 
-Peter Schachte                | You got to be careful if you don't know
mailto:pets at cs.mu.OZ.AU        | where you're going, because you might not
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~pets/  | get there.
PGP: finger pets at 128.250.37.15 |     -- Yogi Berra