Integers of Arbitrary Length (integer)

Definition

An instance a of the data type integer is an integer number of arbitrary length.

Creation

integer	a;	creates an instance a of type integer and initializes it with zero.
integer	a(int n);	creates an instance a of type integer and initializes it with the value of n.
integer	a(double x);	creates an instance a of type integer and initializes it with the integral part of x.

Operations

The arithmetic operations +, -, *, /, +=, -=, *=, /=, -(unary), ++, -, the modulus operation ( bitwise OR (|, | =), the complement ( $\ \tilde{}\$), the shift operations (<<, >>), the comparison operations <, <=, >, >=, ==, != and the stream operations all are available.

int	a.length()	returns the number of bits of the representation of a.
bool	a.islong()	returns whether a fits in the data type long.
bool	a.iszero()	returns whether a is equal to zero.
long	a.to_long()	returns a long number which is initialized with the value of a. Precondition: a.islong() is true.
double	a.to_double()	returns a double floating point approximation of a.
string	a.to_string()	returns the decimal representation of a.

Non-member functions

double	Double(integer a)	returns a double floating point approximation of a.
integer	sqrt(integer a)	returns the largest integer which is not larger than the squareroot of a.
integer	abs(integer a)	returns the absolute value of a.
integer	gcd(integer a, integer b)	returns the greatest common divisor of a and b.
int	log(integer a)	returns the logarithm of a to the basis 2.
int	sign(integer a)	returns the sign of a.
integer	sqr(integer a)	returns a^2.
integer	integer::random(int n)	returns a random integer of length n bits.

Implementation

An integer is essentially implemented by a vector vec of unsigned long numbers. The sign and the size are stored in extra variables. Some time critical functions are also implemented in sparc assembler code.