How to get decimal form of largest known prime?

[David Fraser]

Tim Peters wrote:
> [David Fraser]
> 
>>Is it possibile to have a better algorithm for binary to base 10
>>conversion, or is that limited to quadratic time?
> 
> 
> Sub-quadratic general base-conversion algorithms certainly exist.  Practical
> implementations are complex and long-winded, and I doubt Python will ever
> have one natively.
> 
> 
>>Any links to papers/discussions on this?
> 
> 
> There's a huge literature on asymptotic complexity of elementary arithmetic
> operations on unbounded ints, and that's relevant because general base
> conversion boils down to multiplication and division.  Unless your interest
> is purely theoretical, I recommend searching GMP discussions.  For example,
> here's a pointer into a thread from last December giving an overview of what
> GMP developers were planning to try at that time:
> 
>   "mpf_get_str() is slow for big numbers?"
>   http://www.swox.com/list-archives/gmp-discuss/2003-December/000901.html

Thanks Tim

David