Re: Large Integers?

[spiegel@bruessel.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Andre Spiegel)]

In article <EACHUS.95Jan11095036@spectre.mitre.org> eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes:

>     If all you are doing is counting, ANY 64-bit floating point type
> will fill your needs.  Integers are always model numbers, and thus
> exact, up to 2**Float_Type'MANTISSA, which should give more than your
> required 40 bits.  You only need the ADAR packages if you need integer
> semantics for division.

  That's an interesting suggestion. I really hadn't thought of this,
probably because of a general mistrust concerning floating point
arithmetic. It's just that it requires minor changes to my I/O
routines, because I don't want the trailing ".0". So I would have to
strip it before actually writing the "Image" of the number, and supply
such a suffix before trying to read it back. A little unelegant. Or is
there any way to configure Float_IO such that it doesn't add/expect
the zero fractional part? I don't think so. It might also be a
somewhat less efficient than using an integer package.

  Thanks a lot, though. Seems like I didn't *really* know precisely
what I need...

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