Re: Rational numbers?

[Mikael Djurfeldt <mdj at mdj dot nada dot kth dot se>]

Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@cs.uu.nl> writes:

> I can't find rational number support in GUILE. Are there any plans to
> support those?

There are definite plans of integrating GOOPS into libguile.  The only
things which is missing is the straightening out of the copyright
issues.

When GOOPS has been integrated, it is possible to implement a very
good idea which Jim has proposed: splitting the numerics into separate
modules which are integrated through GOOPS.  We would create a subtype
of generic operators which first treat integers specially for optimal
performance and do ordinary GOOPS method dispatch for other argument
types.

So, if anyone feel like it, it is a good project to implement a
rational number package in the current GOOPS.  Such a package would
fit naturally into the future numeric tower.  In fact, it would fit
quite naturally already now.  If anyone is willing to implement this,
I'm prepared to patch the reader to supply some kind of hook so that
it is possible to read rationals as well.