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<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
<a name="math_toolkit.high_precision"></a><a class="link" href="high_precision.html" title="Using Boost.Math with High-Precision Floating-Point Libraries">Using Boost.Math with High-Precision
Floating-Point Libraries</a>
</h2></div></div></div>
<div class="toc"><dl class="toc">
<dt><span class="section"><a href="high_precision/why_high_precision.html">Why use
a high-precision library rather than built-in floating-point types?</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="high_precision/use_multiprecision.html">Using
Boost.Multiprecision</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="high_precision/float128.html">Using with GCC's
__float128 datatype</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="high_precision/use_mpfr.html">Using With MPFR
or GMP - High-Precision Floating-Point Library</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="high_precision/e_float.html">Using e_float Library</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="high_precision/use_ntl.html">Using NTL Library</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="high_precision/using_test.html">Using without
expression templates for Boost.Test and others</a></span></dt>
</dl></div>
<p>
The special functions, distributions, constants and tools in this library can
be used with a number of high-precision libraries, including:
</p>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem">
<a href="../../../../../libs/multiprecision/doc/html/index.html" target="_top">Boost.Multiprecision</a>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a href="http://calgo.acm.org/910.zip" target="_top">e_float (TOMS Algorithm 910)</a>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a href="http://www.shoup.net/ntl/" target="_top">NTL A Library for doing Number Theory</a>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a href="http://gmplib.org/" target="_top">GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library</a>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<a href="http://www.mpfr.org/" target="_top">GNU MPFR library</a>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
__float128
</li>
</ul></div>
<p>
The last four have some license restrictions; only <a href="../../../../../libs/multiprecision/doc/html/index.html" target="_top">Boost.Multiprecision</a>
when using the <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">cpp_float</span></code> backend
can provide an unrestricted <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">Boost</a>
license.
</p>
<p>
At present, the price of a free license is slightly lower speed.
</p>
<p>
Of course, the main cost of higher precision is very much decreased (usually
at least hundred-fold) computation speed, and big increases in memory use.
</p>
<p>
Some libraries offer true <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary-precision_arithmetic" target="_top">arbitrary-precision
arithmetic</a> where the precision is limited only by available memory
and compute time, but most are used at some arbitrarily-fixed precision, say
100 decimal digits, like <a href="../../../../../libs/multiprecision/doc/html/index.html" target="_top">Boost.Multiprecision</a>
<code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">cpp_dec_float_100</span></code>.
</p>
<p>
<a href="../../../../../libs/multiprecision/doc/html/index.html" target="_top">Boost.Multiprecision</a>
can operate in both ways, but the most popular choice is likely to be about
a hundred decimal digits, though examples of computing about a million digits
have been demonstrated.
</p>
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<td align="right"><div class="copyright-footer">Copyright © 2006-2010, 2012-2014 Nikhar Agrawal,
Anton Bikineev, Paul A. Bristow, Marco Guazzone, Christopher Kormanyos, Hubert
Holin, Bruno Lalande, John Maddock, Jeremy Murphy, Johan Råde, Gautam Sewani,
Benjamin Sobotta, Thijs van den Berg, Daryle Walker and Xiaogang Zhang<p>
Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)
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