This calculates factorials of non-negative integers[*] up to ULONG_MAX, which will have so many digits that it's unlikely your machine can store a whole lot more, even if it has time to calculate them. Uses the GNU multiple precision library, which you need to link against.
#include
#include
#include
#include
void factorial(mpz_t result, unsigned long input) {
mpz_set_ui(result, 1);
while (input > 1) {
mpz_mul_ui(result, result, input--);
}
}
int main() {
mpz_t fact;
unsigned long input = 0;
char *buf;
mpz_init(fact);
scanf("%lu", &input);
factorial(fact, input);
buf = malloc(mpz_sizeinbase(fact, 10) + 1);
assert(buf);
mpz_get_str(buf, 10, fact);
printf("%s\n", buf);
free(buf);
mpz_clear(fact);
}
Example output:
$ make factorial CFLAGS="-L/bin/ -lcyggmp-3 -pedantic" -B && ./factorial
cc -L/bin/ -lcyggmp-3 -pedantic factorial.c -o factorial
100
93326215443944152681699238856266700490715968264381621468592963895217599993229915608941463976156518286253697920827223758251185210916864000000000000000000000000
[*] If you mean something else by "number" then you'll have to be more specific. I'm not aware of any other numbers for which the factorial is defined, despite valiant efforts by Pascal to extend the domain by use of the Gamma function.
