Re: number bases

[jpt@diphi.demon.co.uk (JP Thornley)]

In article: <381D4C88.B5E8BBE7@interact.net.au>  G 
<Dizzy@interact.net.au> writes:
> 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) ?
> 

(This may not be relevant to the question, but...) I recently wrote an 
infinite (size and precision) Rational number package, where the radix 
used for the dividend and divisor could be anywhere between 2 and 45_000 
(radix**2 has to be less than Max_Int). I tried it with a few different 
values, and the clear winner on speed was a radix of 256. (I don't know 
about storage). This was Gnat 3.10 on Win95.

Cheers,

Phil

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| JP Thornley    EMail jpt@diphi.demon.co.uk                           |
|                      phil.thornley@acm.org                           |
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