Calculation results with very long numbers

Hi. I am new to C++.
Learning from tutorials.
One of tutorials shows how to write a simple program that accepts a number and then calculates it to power of another user specified number. Simple numbers work fine (2^5=25, etc) But I want to try very long numbers (1234567^34854322).
The program either quits after accepting the two numbers, or shows something like 1.#INF.
I realize the result may take a hundred lines to display, that is fine.
Question. Is this a failure to calculate or failure to display a result that has been calculated?
How do I format the result so it can be seen?
What are the limitations, if any?
Here is the program:

Code:

---

// Compute power of a number
#include <iostream>
#include <cmath>
#include <iomanip>


int main()
{
    using namespace std;
    double power1;
    double num1;
    cout << "Enter number" << endl;
    cin >> num1;
    cout << "Enter power" << endl;
    cin >> power1;
    num1 = pow(power1,num1);
    cout << setprecision(130)  << num1 << endl;
   
    system("pause");
        return 0;
}

---

I am certain that 1234567^34854322" is way too big for any standard data type. You could write one, storing digits in a vector. Then compute the result based on that old way you learned to count. Some digit * the base ^ postion

Syscal, thank you for the reply.
What is the best source to look up these custom vector data types? Is this the right term, first of all?
Thanks again.

It's a failure to store. double datatype just doesn't have enough bits to represent such a huge number.

See here for how to determine various such limits on your system.

This might be enlightening: Arbitrary-precision arithmetic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I must be going crazy because I can remember there being a Boost bigint library... but it doesn't exist.

Hmm, as fate would have it, I've been working on my simple and easy to understand bigint and megafloat classes over the last few days.
Just finishing ensuring they pass all tests before uploading.
Probably best to pick one of those existing ones if you're more interested in results, than how it works though.

BMJ (thank you BTW) pointed to a wikipedia article which has this link to an online calculator: ttmath.org / Big online calculator . So, it can compute but what code do I write to generate these large numbers? examples will be appreciated!

I found an example of how to use vectors, but this example below uses a constraint. How do I connect the two so it stores long numbers as shown above:

Code:

---

#include <cstring> // memcpy
#include <vector>
#include <cstdio> // printf
int main()
{
  using namespace std;
  const char arr[] = "12345678902333333333323323333333345345345345345345435";
  // construct a vector with 11 zero-initialized chars.
  vector<char> vec(sizeof arr); 
  // copy 11 chars from arr into the vector
  memcpy(&vec[0], arr, sizeof arr);
  // prints "1234567890"
  printf("%s", &vec[0]);
 
    system("pause");
    return 0;
}

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by grigorianvlad

I found an example of how to use vectors, but this example below uses a constraint. How do I connect the two so it stores long numbers as shown above:

---

what do you mean by constraint?
btw, google is your friend, here's one big integer library
https://mattmccutchen.net/bigint/

Your problem here is pow(). You need to re-implement the function.

Basically, you want

Code:

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vector<char>* long_pow(double num, double pow);

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Now how to implement that. I don't think it is that easy. Your alternative would be to find a ready library.

You could of course go with

Code:

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vector<char>* long_pow(vector<char>& num, vector<char>& pow);

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and basically do it as you would do it with a pen and paper speed not being good but still it would work