On Thu 19 Aug 2010 09:04, Andy Wingo <wi...@pobox.com> writes:
> Regarding modf -- it seems that the R6RS extends the definition of
> `modulo' (called `mod') to be defined over the real numbers.
>
> (mod 10 3) => 1
> (mod 10 3.0) => 1.0
> (mod 10 3.1) => 0.7
>
> This appears to be a compatible extension of the R5RS' `modulo', so we
> should just extend our definition. That way we can avoid adding another
> symbol.
This was a mistaken impression, something I realized while trying to
implement this. From the R6RS rationale, section 11.6.6:
div and mod
Given arithmetic on exact integer objects of arbitrary precision, it
is a trivial matter to derive signed and unsigned integer types of
finite range from it by modular reduction. For example 32-bit
signed two-complement arithmetic behaves like computing with the
residue classes “mod 232 ”, where the set {−231 , . . . , 231 − 1}
has been chosen to represent the residue classes. Likewise, unsigned
32-bit arithmetic also behaves like computing “mod 232 ”, but with a
different set of representatives {0, . . . , 232 − 1}.
Unfortunately, the R5 RS operations quotient, remainder, and modulo
are not ideal for this purpose. In the following example, remainder
fails to transport the additive group structure of the integers over
to the residues modulo 3.
(remainder (+ -2 3) 3) =⇒ 1
(remainder (+ (remainder -2 3)
(remainder 3 3))
3) =⇒ -2
In fact, modulo should have been used, producing residues in {0, 1,
2}. For modular reduction with symmetric residues, i.e., in {−1, 0,
1} in the example, it is necessary to define a more complicated
reduction altogether.
Therefore, quotient, remainder, and modulo have been replaced in R6
RS by the div, mod, div0, and mod0 procedures, which are more useful
when implementing modular reduction. The underlying mathematical
functions div, mod, div0 , and mod0 (see report section 11.7.3) have
been adapted from the div and mod operations by Egner et
al. [11]. They differ in the representatives from the residue
classes they return: div and mod always compute a nonnegative
residue, whereas div0 and mod0 compute a residue from a set centered
on 0. The former can be used, for example, to implement unsigned
fixed-width arithmetic, whereas the latter correspond to
two’s-complement arithmetic.
These operations differ slightly from the div and mod operations
from Egner et al. The latter make both operations available through
a single pair of operations that distinguish between the two cases
for residues by the sign of the divisor (as well as returning 0 for
a zero divisor). Splitting the operations into two sets of
procedures avoids potential confusion.
The procedures modulo, remainder, and quotient from R5RS can easily
be defined in terms of div and mod.
So I'm not sure what to do exactly. If Scheme people are happy with div
and mod, as in the R6RS, then we should implement them and make them the
default, implementing quotient, modulo, and remainder in terms of
them. Hmm.
Andy
--
http://wingolog.org/
