Re: libpari precision handling changes

On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 05:41:18PM -0800, Ilya Zakharevich wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 15, 2023 at 11:43:00PM +0100, Bill Allombert wrote:
> > > > I committed a change to the way the precision is manipulated in the 
> > > > C library.
> > > > 
> > > > Now the precision is a multiple of BITS_IN_LONG.
> > > 
> > > This is a major backwards-incompatible change.  Should not it better
> > > be handled by introducing new names for macros and functions?  
> 
> > It has been documented since 2013 than one should not assume that 
> > realprec==lg. 
> 
> > Anyway, I am available to fix any code that is affected.
> > It is just a matter of using realprec, prec2nbits and nbits2prec properly.
> 
> It seems that I was not clear enough.  THE reason for changing the
> names of macros and functions is not to make it easier to “fix any
> code that is affected”.

The change does not change the documented API, so no properly written code
should be affected. Changing the macro and function names would force everybody
to rewrite the code to use the new names.

The new stable releases 2.17 will have a new ABI anyway.

Cheers,
Bill