Python in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

The gmpy Module

The gmpy module (http://gmpy.sourceforge.net) wraps the GMP library (http://www.swox.com/gmp/) to extend and accelerate Python’s abilities for multiple-precision arithmetic, or arithmetic in which the precision of the numbers involved is bounded only by the amount of memory available. Python “out of the box” supplies multiple-precision arithmetic for integers through the built-in type long, covered in Chapter 4; gmpy supplies another integer-number type, named mpz, which affords even faster operations than Python’s built-in long, and other functions and methods for a vast variety of fast number-theoretical computations (Fibonacci numbers, factorials, binomial coefficients, probabilistic determination of primality, etc.) and bit-string operations. gmpy also supplies a rational-number type (named mpq), a floating-point-number type with arbitrary precision (named mpf), and fast random-number generators.

gmpy’s reference documentation is part of the gmpy-sources tarball, which you can download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/gmpy/; on the same page, you will find precompiled, ready-to-install downloads for Windows and Mac OS X 10.4 versions of Python (2.3 and 2.4 at the time of this writing). You need to download and unpack the sources package anyway, even if you’re installing a precompiled version, because the sources package is the only one that includes the documentation (which you’ll find in subdirectory doc once you have unpacked the tarball). Further, in subdirectory ...