RFR: 8077587: BigInteger Roots [v23]

[Raffaello Giulietti]

On Tue, 22 Jul 2025 18:38:28 GMT, fabioromano1 <duke at openjdk.org> wrote:

> The cases in which the method throws correspond to the cases in which the integer root is not defined.

Yes, that's why it should be part of the definition: like in "the largest integer ..., if it exists; otherwise the result is undefined, and the method throws".

Specified this way, one `@throws` clause for undefined r would be sufficient. The implementation can still generate different messages, but this is not part of the spec.

> For the specification, the equivalence of the definition with the formula ... makes sense only when the definition itself makes sense, i.e. only when the method does not throw.

IMO, this could be expressed more clearly as "when r is defined, it is equal to ..." or something similar.

(As an aside, if R is taken as a subfield of C, the principal value of the nth root needs not be real, even in the case of odd n > 0. That's why I asked about the meaning of nth root here. And even "principal value" doesn't have a universally accepted definition, as it depends on the choice of the range for the "principal" phase angle of a complex number.)

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PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/24898#discussion_r2223746548