############################################################################### (C) Copyright ..--- ----- ----- ..--- by - . .-.. ... .-.-.- ############################################################################### This package attempts to make it easier to write scripts that use BigInts/BigFloats in a transparent way. They use the rewritten versiosn of Math::BigInt and Math::BigFloat, Math::BigRat (for bigrat) and optionally Math::BigInt::Lite. It's a great way for writing impressing onliners, which is almost enough to justify any Perl package ;) Here are a couple of teasers: perl -Mbignum=v perl -Mbignum -le 'print 2 ** 252' perl -Mbignum=a,25 -le 'print sqrt(2)' perl -Mbignum -le 'print 2 ** 0.5' perl -Mbignum -le 'print 2 ** 0.2' perl -Mbignum -le 'print 23->bfac()' perl -Mbignum -le 'print inf+inf' perl -Mbignum -le 'print inf*inf' Also try the following bigrat's as opposed to bignum: perl -Mbigrat -le 'print 2/3+5/7' perl -Mbigrat -le 'print 1/3*3' perl -Mbigint -le 'print 4.5 + 4.5' perl -Mbigint -le 'print 123e-2+123e3' A more usefull usage of these modules is extending Perl to provide transparent big number support. Instead of using some Math::Big* modules with ':constant' you can do the following: use bignum; print 0x12345678901234567890 + 123456789.123456789; and it will automatically work. In addition, when you switch in the future to Perl 6, your program can be made to work exactly the same, without the need for the Math::Big* modules. The reason is that Perl 6 will have build-in support for big numbers and thus the need for the slow Math::Big* modules could vanish. More information on how it works and for the other options refer to the pod documentation of bignum and bigrat. More information including HTMLified help and benchmark results are available under: http://bloodgate.com/perl/ Please send me test-reports, your experiences with this and your ideas - I love to hear about my work! Tels <http://bloodgate.com/>