I'm working through An Introduction to ANSI C on UNIX which has suited me well so far.
I don't understand this problem they gave me, though.
"Write a quadruple-precision integer package with integer arrays and the arithmetic routines: qint_add, qint_sub, int_times, qint_quotient, and qint_display."
I know pretty well about precision, I think, but why not use floats for only four decimal places? The only meaning I can think of for this problem has already been built into C.
Take a look at GMP, which is an arbitrary precision math library. It allows you to do calculations with number types such that the range of the results can go beyond the range of the built-in integer and floating point types. It seems to me that you are asking to implement an integer math library similiar to GMP's integer math facilities, except that it is limited to quadruple precision, not arbitrary precision. "Quadruple precision" itself probably just means that you are expected to make use of an array of four ints to store the value of your integer type.
Look up a C++ Reference and learn How To Ask Questions The Smart WayOriginally Posted by Bjarne Stroustrup (2000-10-14)
The GMP looks very interesting. I'm glad you told me about it. I think I understand the exercise, now. It looks pretty challenging for me at this stage.
