Continuing from last week’s Lesson, just as you can’t use the equal sign to assign an mpz_t huge integer value, you can’t use the standard arithmetic operators to do math — huge math. Nope, you must use special GMP library functions to do the math.
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I’ve written a few books on using external libraries, which I shamelessly plug later in this post. After confirming that the library is installed (see last week’s post), the next step isn’t to code, but rather to peruse the online documentation, the API or Application Programming Interface.
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Unlike real numbers, integers are stored in binary as-is: The bits are read and values set. The only limit on an integer’s value is on the number of bits in the binary chunk — the bit width — which sets the value’s range, positive and negative or just positive.
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The C language is weak when it comes to strings. Even the paltry assortment of string.h manipulation functions lacks quite a few tricks that are readily available to other languages. Among them is a function to reverse a string. So why not code your own?
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Generating a table where the items march left-to-right and then down the page is uncomplicated with stream output. What’s more difficult is outputting a table where the data drops in columns top-down before going left-to-right. Performing this feat requires no screen/cursor manipulation, only clever coding.
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This month’s Exercise searched for and output the first 100 cyclops numbers. But instead of spewing them out in a long column, my solution set them in a table. The values marched across the screen in neat rows. This trick is rather easy to accomplish, but in my solution I wanted some flexibility with the column number.
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In a post from 2020, I wrote about various integer size values. Seems they don’t consistently sport the same bit width. Just recently, I’ve obtained some updated information and valuable insight into the bit width question.
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Occasionally the Wizards of C concoct a mad method to perform some magical feat on a number. This sorcery cannot be explained using those scant, basic math concepts known to me. So perhaps you’d like to invest a few moments to review what I consider to be one of the most insane ways to discover the maximum power of two that can divide any integer.
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I am not a math genius, as any math genius who reviews my work is happy to tell me. Even so, when programming I’m often faced with math challenges where a math education would benefit. My most recent puzzle is how to count the number of digits in a value without first converting the value into a string.
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I saw this problem on stackoverflow: How can you take a month string and convert it into an integer value, one through 12? The student submitting the query used a long if-else if-else construction. I have a better idea.
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