From: black.hole.4.spam{at}gmail.com (Don Hills)

In article , Mike '/m'
 wrote:
>
>Good grief, there are 3rd-party math libraries for that stuff.  Why
>re-invent the world?

Knowing "how stuff works", even if you then use a ready-made
solution instead of doing it yourself, gives you an advantage over people
who don't know. It gives you the knowledge needed to select the most
efficient method for your particular implementation and sanity check it for
accuracy. So, all credit to Geo for wanting to know.


Somewhere I have an explanation of how the REXX language does its
arithmetic (decimal based on strings). But if I want to code the division
example given earlier, I just write:

/**/
numeric digits 80
say 44857574839343585765769594030039384858786868694948437837376485 / 3


--
Don Hills    (dmhills at attglobaldotnet)     Wellington, New Zealand
"New interface closely resembles Presentation Manager,
 preparing you for the wonders of OS/2!"
    -- Advertisement on the box for Microsoft Windows 2.11 for 286

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5