Date:         Tue, 26 Feb 2002 02:15:10 GMT
Reply-To:     lpogoda <lpogoda@HOTMAIL.SPAMFREE.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         lpogoda <lpogoda@HOTMAIL.SPAMFREE.COM>
Organization: Excite@Home - The Leader in Broadband http://home.com/faster
Subject:      Re: storing and operating large numbers

Gleb V. Kotelnitskyy wrote in message ...
>David L. Cassell <Cassell.David@epamail.epa.gov> wrote:
>> "Gleb V. Kotelnitskyy" <fi8208@PTF.NTU-KPI.KIEV.UA> wrote:
>>> are there any method of using large numbers (more than 8 bytes) in SAS
>>> or at least leave less then 11 bits for exponential part?
>
>> If you are trying to work with arbitrary-precision numbers, you
>> may find that SAS is not really designed for that purpose.  You
>> can use arrays of arbitrary length to hold individual digits of
>> your numbers, and then write your own code to do 'multiplication'
>> or whatever you need.  But you may be better-served trying some
>> alternatives.  I suggest you check out Perl and its modules
>> Math::BigFloat and Math::BigInt .  One of them is probably what
>> you are looking for.
>
>but I need SAS analytical tools, so how can i use them in PERL, or how can
I
>link up PERL modules  to SAS?
>
You've roused my curiosity - under Windows, for example, the largest number
stored exactly by those 8 bytes is 9,007,199,254,740,992.  That's a pretty
big number.  What are you working with that makes that insufficient?