Re: number bases

[dwalker07@snet.net.invalid (Daryle Walker)]

G <Dizzy@interact.net.au> wrote:

> I don't have enough time to study Ada full time because I am too busy
> doing websites for non-profits, welfare orgs etc.

Well, you can't expect to be good in Ada without some effort.
Newsgroups can only do so much.

> If someone decides to represent all or the majority of integers in a
> program unit with base 2 or 16 - does this in any way optimise the code.
> Which is to say - does it take less space in memory and is it more
> efficient (does it run faster) to represent integers (floats, whatever) in
> a form closer to the machine architecture/structure (i.e. binary) ?

What base you use makes no difference to the runtime performance.  The
representation you typed is converted to the same independent format by
the compiler, so the differences between bases goes away.  This applies
to the built-in types; an user-defined type may keep base information,
i.e. store its value in place-value notation, which would be
runtime-affected by the radix chosen.


-- 
Daryle Walker
Video Game, Mac, and Internet Junkie
dwalker07 AT snet DOT net