[GiNaC-list] Re: GiNaC 1.3.1

[Chris Dams]

Dear Jens,

On Mon, 9 May 2005, Jens Vollinga wrote:

> But seriously, I thought you and Richie solved that issue more or less?

Well, I submitted a patch that solved the issue. This patch was only
partly applied. Actually, only the code-beautifying part of it was applied
and this change may, depending on the compiler, not even generate a
different *.so file.

The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, my patch breaks binary
compatibility. Secondly, Richy was not certain whether he liked that my
patch throws all references to flyweights out of the library and only
keeps flyweights as numeric*'s and as ex-es. Of course it is quite
possible to make a five-or-so-line class that emulates the behaviour of
references and initializes in a safe way. On the other hand, that would
probably still break binary compatibility. Or maybe not, as I showed in a
private mail, but that results is some dirty hacking, that could possibly
break things for some people.

Since Richy is apparently still thinking about what would be best, I am
not sure what is going to be done.

Best wishes,
Chris