Max Long

[mensanator at aol.com]

On Jan 21, 5:36 pm, Gary Herron <gher... at islandtraining.com> wrote:
> tjhn... at gmail.com wrote:
> > How can I figure out the largest long available?  I was hoping for
> > something like sys.maxint, but I didn't see it.  Also, can someone
> > point me to where I can (concisely) read about size of such types
> > (int, float, long).
>
> There is no explicit (defined) limit.  The amount of available address
> space forms a practical limit.

But not the only limitation:

>>> import collatz_functions as cf
>>> for k in xrange(1,20):
	a = cf.Type12MH(k,1)
	print 'number of digits in generation %2d:' %
(k),cf.gmpy.numdigits(a)

number of digits in generation  1: 2
number of digits in generation  2: 9
number of digits in generation  3: 74
number of digits in generation  4: 659
number of digits in generation  5: 5926
number of digits in generation  6: 53328
number of digits in generation  7: 479940
number of digits in generation  8: 4319453
number of digits in generation  9: 38875064
number of digits in generation 10: 349875565

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#12>", line 2, in <module>
    a = cf.Type12MH(k,1)
  File "C:\Program Files\PyGTK\Python\lib\collatz_functions.py", line
745, in Type12MH
    return TWO**(SIX*a - ONE) - ONE
ValueError: mpz.pow outrageous exponent

The power function can't do exponents that have 32 or more bits
even if the memory can hold the resulting number.

>
> Gary Herron