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Rather than storing values as a fixed number of bits related to the size of the processor register, these implementations typically use variable-length arrays of digits. Arbitrary precision is used in applications where the speed of arithmetic is not a limiting factor, or where precise results with very large numbers are required.
In computer programming, a variable-length array (VLA), also called variable-sized or runtime-sized, is an array data structure whose length is determined at runtime, instead of at compile time. [1] In the language C , the VLA is said to have a variably modified data type that depends on a value (see Dependent type ).
A decimal data type could be implemented as either a floating-point number or as a fixed-point number. In the fixed-point case, the denominator would be set to a fixed power of ten. In the floating-point case, a variable exponent would represent the power of ten to which the mantissa of the number is multiplied.
Floating-point representation is similar in concept to scientific notation. Logically, a floating-point number consists of: A signed (meaning positive or negative) digit string of a given length in a given radix (or base). This digit string is referred to as the significand, mantissa, or coefficient.
A floating-point variable can represent a wider range of numbers than a fixed-point variable of the same bit width at the cost of precision. A signed 32-bit integer variable has a maximum value of 2 31 − 1 = 2,147,483,647, whereas an IEEE 754 32-bit base-2 floating-point variable has a maximum value of (2 − 2 −23) × 2 127 ≈ 3.4028235 ...
Variable-length arithmetic operations are considerably slower than fixed-length format floating-point instructions. When high performance is not a requirement, but high precision is, variable length arithmetic can prove useful, though the actual accuracy of the result may not be known.
Push the length (of type native unsigned int) of array on the stack. Object model instruction 0xFE 0x0C ldloc <uint16 (indx)> Load local variable of index indx onto stack. Base instruction 0x06 ldloc.0: Load local variable 0 onto stack. Base instruction 0x07 ldloc.1: Load local variable 1 onto stack. Base instruction 0x08 ldloc.2
The length of a string can also be stored explicitly, for example by prefixing the string with the length as a byte value. This convention is used in many Pascal dialects; as a consequence, some people call such a string a Pascal string or P-string. Storing the string length as byte limits the maximum string length to 255.