| # Enhancements to java.math | Documentation Contents

> The following enhancement has been made to the `java.math` package in version 1.4 of the JavaTM 2 SDK.

> Performance enhancements for prime generation in `BigIntenger`

> > New static method `probablePrime` has been added to class `BigInteger` for generating prime numbers. Previously, the sole means of generating a prime `BigInteger` required the caller to provide a 'certainty' (the log of the probability of compositeness that the caller was willing to tolerate). However, providing an unreasonable value for the certainty could lead to poor performance (if the certainty was too high) or serious bugs (if it was too low). The new prime-generation method provides an efficient algorithm for generating primes using an automatically determined, appropriate value for the certainty based on a draft ANSI specification (X9-80).

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