On Monday 10 November 2003 03:18 am, ragge wrote:
> I have removed the limits that the old tools had (like 99 decimals)
> and also taught it that modern machines has ints larger than 16 bits,
> so it will now run as fast as the GNU tools.
> I have not implemented all GNU options and switches that are availabl
> but it should be fully compliant with POSIX etc.

I would object to the removal of many of the features of GNU bc.   Also,
I don't think the current code is working well enough to replace GNU bc.

For example:

turn[109]$ bc -l
scale=1000
4*a(1)
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510560000000000000000\
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000\

I ran many of my other tests for GNU bc and many of them didn't work on the 
32V processor.  Also, the math library is much slower.   To show this 
consider the following.  I'm using the version of bc you posted for this 
test,  bc.library is the math library for 32V and libmath.b is the GNU bc 
version.

---->~/me/bc/Test
turn[119]$ time bc bc.library jn.b
-.03329855487630566800748309439984550659781158351287
-.00648115168876276895858580295786734310987910950934
.04431532933245365649911092813736180550142494873120
-.04084340882273173036919689349257616993289838931589
-.02243471758440192810060521803721671199059663161876
-.01449122706478569886133684583938086724345975237695

real    0m32.916s
user    0m32.051s
sys     0m0.121s

---->~/me/bc/Test
turn[120]$ time bc libmath.b jn.b
-.03329855487630566800748309439984550659781158351287
-.00648115168876276895858580295786734310987910950934
.04431532933245365649911092813736180550142494873120
-.04084340882273173036919689349257616993289838931589
-.02243471758440192810060521803721671199059663161876
-.01449122706478569886133684583938086724345975237695

real    0m1.828s
user    0m1.784s
sys     0m0.000s

There are other areas where work is needed:
---->~/me/bc/Test
turn[137]$ echo "length(2^44497)" | bc
exp too big
stack empty
empty stack
save:args

---->~/me/bc/Test
turn[138]$ echo "length(2^44497)" | gbc
13395

Again, I'd like to know why it is so important to have the GPL removed from 
all the tools?    I understand the kernel and fully support it.    

--Phil