Arithmetic with Arbitrarily Large Integers in PHP

Question

Ok, so PHP isn\'t the best language to be dealing with arbitrarily large integers in, considering that it only natively supports 32-bit signed integers. What I\'m trying to

Answer 1

There are already various classes available for this so you may wish to look at them before writing your own solution (if indeed writing your own solution is still needed).

Answer 2

As far as I can tell, the bcmath extension is the one you'll want. The data in the PHP manual is a little sparse, but you out to be able to set the precision to be exactly what you need by using the bcscale() function, or the optional third parameter in most of the other bcmath functions. Not too sure on the binary strings thing, but a bit of googling tells me you ought to be able to do with by making use of the pack() function.

Answer 3

The PHP GMP extension will be better for this. As an added bonus, you can use it to do your decimal-to-binary conversion, like so:

gmp_strval(gmp_init($n, 10), 2);

Answer 4

I implemented the following PEMDAS complaint BC evaluator which may be useful to you.

function BC($string, $precision = 32)
{
    if (extension_loaded('bcmath') === true)
    {
        if (is_array($string) === true)
        {
            if ((count($string = array_slice($string, 1)) == 3) && (bcscale($precision) === true))
            {
                $callback = array('^' => 'pow', '*' => 'mul', '/' => 'div', '%' => 'mod', '+' => 'add', '-' => 'sub');

                if (array_key_exists($operator = current(array_splice($string, 1, 1)), $callback) === true)
                {
                    $x = 1;
                    $result = @call_user_func_array('bc' . $callback[$operator], $string);

                    if ((strcmp('^', $operator) === 0) && (($i = fmod(array_pop($string), 1)) > 0))
                    {
                        $y = BC(sprintf('((%1$s * %2$s ^ (1 - %3$s)) / %3$s) - (%2$s / %3$s) + %2$s', $string = array_shift($string), $x, $i = pow($i, -1)));

                        do
                        {
                            $x = $y;
                            $y = BC(sprintf('((%1$s * %2$s ^ (1 - %3$s)) / %3$s) - (%2$s / %3$s) + %2$s', $string, $x, $i));
                        }

                        while (BC(sprintf('%s > %s', $x, $y)));
                    }

                    if (strpos($result = bcmul($x, $result), '.') !== false)
                    {
                        $result = rtrim(rtrim($result, '0'), '.');

                        if (preg_match(sprintf('~[.][9]{%u}$~', $precision), $result) > 0)
                        {
                            $result = bcadd($result, (strncmp('-', $result, 1) === 0) ? -1 : 1, 0);
                        }

                        else if (preg_match(sprintf('~[.][0]{%u}[1]$~', $precision - 1), $result) > 0)
                        {
                            $result = bcmul($result, 1, 0);
                        }
                    }

                    return $result;
                }

                return intval(version_compare(call_user_func_array('bccomp', $string), 0, $operator));
            }

            $string = array_shift($string);
        }

        $string = str_replace(' ', '', str_ireplace('e', ' * 10 ^ ', $string));

        while (preg_match('~[(]([^()]++)[)]~', $string) > 0)
        {
            $string = preg_replace_callback('~[(]([^()]++)[)]~', __FUNCTION__, $string);
        }

        foreach (array('\^', '[\*/%]', '[\+-]', '[<>]=?|={1,2}') as $operator)
        {
            while (preg_match(sprintf('~(?<![0-9])(%1$s)(%2$s)(%1$s)~', '[+-]?(?:[0-9]++(?:[.][0-9]*+)?|[.][0-9]++)', $operator), $string) > 0)
            {
                $string = preg_replace_callback(sprintf('~(?<![0-9])(%1$s)(%2$s)(%1$s)~', '[+-]?(?:[0-9]++(?:[.][0-9]*+)?|[.][0-9]++)', $operator), __FUNCTION__, $string, 1);
            }
        }
    }

    return (preg_match('~^[+-]?[0-9]++(?:[.][0-9]++)?$~', $string) > 0) ? $string : false;
}

It automatically deals with rounding errors, just set the precision to whatever digits you need.