What programming languages provide native multiple-precision arithmetic?
The Axiom, Maple, Mathematica, Maxima, MuPAD, PARI/GP, and Reduce symbolic-algebra languages, the Unix bc and dc calculators, and the python and rexx scripting languages, all provide such a facility and make it easy to use. There are separate BigFloat packages available for the perl and ruby scripting languages. For example, in Maple, you can change the decimal precision at any time by a simple assignment to a global variable, Digits := 100;, without making any other changes to your program. All subsequent arithmetic, and all of the built-in functions, are then computed to the specified precision. If you need multiple-precision arithmetic for experimental code that you are developing, these languages are likely to prove most convenient. However, because the arithmetic is performed in software, and code is interpreted, rather than compiled, run times can be hundreds, or even thousands, of times slower than they would be in a compiled language using hardware arithmetic. Java and C# provi
