Math::GMP was designed to be a drop-in replacement both for
Math::BigInt and for regular integer arithmetic.  Unlike BigInt,
though, Math::GMP uses the GNU gmp library for all of its
calculations, as opposed to straight Perl functions.  This can result
in speed improvements.

The downside is that this module requires a C compiler to install -- a
small tradeoff in most cases. Also, this module is not 100 percent compatible
to Math::BigInt.

A Math::GMP object can be used just as a normal numeric scalar would
be -- the module overloads most of the normal arithmetic operators to
provide as seamless an interface as possible. However, if you need a
perfect interface, you can do the following:

 use Math::GMP qw(:constant);

 $n = 2 ** (256 * 1024);
 print "n is $n\n";

This would fail without the ':constant' since Perl would use normal
doubles to compute the 250,000 bit number, and thereby overflow it
into meaninglessness (smaller exponents yield less accurate data due
to floating point rounding).

• Mikhail Pokidko

• perl-Math-GMP