diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/lispref/numbers.texi | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | etc/NEWS | 15 |
2 files changed, 13 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/doc/lispref/numbers.texi b/doc/lispref/numbers.texi index bd633b77c35..37d2c316490 100644 --- a/doc/lispref/numbers.texi +++ b/doc/lispref/numbers.texi @@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ numbers have a fixed amount of precision. Integers in Emacs Lisp can have arbitrary precision. Under the hood, though, there are two kinds of integers: smaller -ones, called @dfn{fixnums}, and larger ones, called @dfn{bignums} +ones, called @dfn{fixnums}, and larger ones, called @dfn{bignums}. Some functions in Emacs only accept fixnums. Also, while fixnums can always be compared for equality with @code{eq}, bignums require the use of @code{eql}. @@ -858,9 +858,18 @@ otherwise, it returns nil. 'format-proper-list-p' is now an obsolete alias for the new function. +++ -** Emacs Lisp integers can be of arbitrary precision. The new -predicates 'bignump' and 'fixnump' can be used to distinguish between -the types of integers. +** Emacs Lisp integers can now be of arbitrary size. +Emacs uses the GNU Multiple Precision (GMP) library to support +integers whose size is too large to support natively. The integers +supported natively are known as "fixnums", while the larger ones are +"bignums". The new predicates 'bignump' and 'fixnump' can be used to +distinguish between these two types of integers. + +All the arithmetic, comparison, and logical (a.k.a. "bitwise") +operations where bignums make sense now support both fixnums and +bignums. However, note that unlike fixnums, bignums will not compare +equal with 'eq', you must use 'eql' instead. (Numerical comparison +with '=' works on both, of course.) ** define-minor-mode automatically documents the meaning of ARG |