pjm@ionia.engr.sgi.com (Patrick May) writes: This invocation of the name of the diety reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask. Is Knuth still a good source of algorithms for implementing large integers or do more recent books exist that contain superior methods?
While Knuth is now and forever the algorithm deity in general, Arjen Lenstra is as close to godhood as one can get in moby ints these days. I'd look at the Lip package Lenstra wrote; it's used in his state of the art factoring programs. It's available with masses of PostScript documentation from ftp.ox.ac.uk. Studying the code and docs might remind you of some issues that aren't obvious... and, of course, you might decide you don't need to write a moby int package, but could just use his library. Jim Gillogly Hevensday, 18 Afterlithe S.R. 1995, 18:48