I have written a basic C program to return factorials. I am having trouble with intergers greater than 2 billion.
fact(18) and above return nonsense
values.
How do you use very large intergers in C?
I have tried unsigned long int, but it
did not help.
Thanks,
Rookie
I think...Code:unsigned long long
The built-in types can only hold so much. If you want integers that exceed those types then you need to either use a nonstandard compiler extended type, such as int64, or an arbitrary length integer library that allows you to use numbers of any size (unless you run out of some critical resource first).
There was a contest concerning this topic a while ago, you can search back. I believe some of the entries were posted. The code may be helpful in you writing your own library, or you can ask the author for permission to use their code in your program.
My best code is written with the delete key.
If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.
If at first you don't succeed, try writing your phone number on the exam paper.
Note that the largest unsigned integer that can be represented by a 32-bit number is about 4.29 E9 (4 times 10 to the 9th, in English.) For a 64-bit number, it's about 1.8 E19. Note, further, that 21 factorial is about 5.1 E19.
It helps to consider mathematical possibilities before trying to program something unattainable. If you want to calculate something larger than 20 factorial, you can't do it with built-in arithmetic limited to 32-bit or 64-bit numbers.
Dave
GNU mutli-precision library (libgmp)
cscience.org
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