AboutAlex Barry Expertise I have been a qbasic programmer since 2000, creating games, minor libraries and various small programs. I have experience using interrupts, graphics, file input/output, the mouse cursor, and using libraries. I have also learned FreeBASIC, c/c++, python, php and html.
I do not claim to be an absolute authority in any language, but I don't mind looking things up and learning with you.
Experience Hobby programming since 2000
I no longer belong to any community programming groups, but do have knowledge of *basic dialects and C/C++
Question dear alex,
for some reason i need to store a perfect number in a file.
by perfect number i mean like 9865986498659589745895698569 not 9D+23.
1.which varible should i use?
in long integer, if i input a 9 digit number it is storing it perfectly in a file.but whaen i am using single\double precision, it is storing number in file like 9.2D+28.the number is not like what i wnat.i want every digit of number.
2.which variable will occupy least memory and handle big digit numbers without making them 10-to-the-power?
3.i used long integer to save big digit number in a file.that should occupy 4 byte but it is showning 11 bytes.why? is this because of 32 bit operating system? As i am trying to write a data compression program i need the output file as short as possible.
Dear alex i think i have given u a strange ques but there is no one in my area to answer me and if i ask this they will not answer as they think i am wasting my time.
i hope u give the answer. i cannt wait!
saif
Answer Hi, Saif,
Sorry for the delay.
1. As far as storing a large number, if there is no decimal, use a long integer - if there is, you'll need to use a double.
2. Once you get into numbers with many digits, you'll have to use a long, or a double. At this point, it won't be about how small you can make it, because you'll be storing large numbers
3. When you save information to a file, it transforms all data into ASCII equivalents, which means you won't use the same amount of memory in a file that QBasic would use when you are dealing with the variable
If you are making something to compress information, you may want to do something like this:
First, download a DOS-compatible compression program. I suggest gzip:
ftp://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/tools/zip/info-zip/MSDOS/gzip124.exe
From there, after doing your OPEN "file" FOR OUTPUT AS #x ... CLOSE #x
you would do a SHELL( "gzip file" )
and voila, that should compress that the best possible - you may have to tinker with the gzip command line, but for smaller files, you won't see much compression, but the bigger the file, the more compression you can get.
I hope that helps you out - if you have any other questions, I'll try and get back to you a little quicker.
-Alex
