The following enhancements were made to the java.math package
in version 1.3 of the JavaTM 2 SDK.
Performance enhancements in BigIntenger
Class java.math.BigInteger has
been reimplemented in pure Java programming-language code. Previously,
BigInteger's implementation was based on an underlying C library. On
a high-quality VM, the new implementation performs all operations
faster than the old implementation. The speed-up can be as much as 5x or
more, depending on the operation being performed and the length of the
operands.
More robust BigDecimal(String) constructor
The BigDecimal(String) constructor has been enhanced to allow
signed strings (for example, "+2.71828") and exponential notation
(for example, "1.23E-23") as input.