long int computations

[Peter Pearson]

On Mon, 03 May 2010 17:30:03 +0200, Peter Otten <__peter__ at web.de> wrote:
> Victor Eijkhout wrote:
>
>> I have two long ints, both too long to convert to float, but their ratio
>> is something reasonable. How can I compute that? The obvious "(1.*x)/y"
>> does not work.
>
>>>> import fractions
>>>> x = 12345 * 10**1000
>>>> y = 765 * 10**1000
>>>> float(x)
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
> OverflowError: long int too large to convert to float
>>>> fractions.Fraction(x, y)
> Fraction(823, 51)
>>>> float(_)
> 16.137254901960784

Does this still work if y = 765 * 10**1000 + 1 ?  It looks
as if it might rely on x and y having a large common divisor.

(I blush to confess that my Python has no fractions module,
and it's too early in the morning to risk trying to update
anything.)

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