CS201 Question
There are numerous data storage companies in existence today, each with their own plans to store data for different purpose and size. Let”s consider a scenario where you have recently been employed by a such company called “StorageSolutions” which specializes in storing huge amount of data.
Now, you have been assigned the task to store a number in a variable. The number is 51,147,483,647,321.
You have different data types like Integer, Float, Char, and Double. Which data type will you use from the given data types to store the given number and why? Justify your answer with logical reasoning.
Answer
To store the number 51,147,483,647,321, we need to select a data type that can accommodate such a large value. Let’s examine the available data types and determine the most suitable one:
- Integer: The largest integer data type in most programming languages is typically
long long int, which can hold values up to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (assuming a 64-bit system). Unfortunately, this data type is not sufficient to store the given number, as it exceeds the maximum value it can represent. - Float: The
floatdata type is used to represent decimal numbers. However, it has a limited precision and cannot accurately represent such a large integer value. Additionally, it has a smaller range compared to integers, so it is not suitable for storing the given number. - Char: The
chardata type is used to represent individual characters. It is not designed to store large numerical values, and its range is typically limited to -128 to 127 or 0 to 255, depending on whether it’s signed or unsigned. - Double: The
doubledata type is a floating-point type that offers higher precision compared tofloat. However, similar to thefloattype, it has limited range and is not suitable for storing the given number.
Considering the limitations of the above data types, the most appropriate choice for storing the number 51,147,483,647,321 would be a data type that can handle large integers. For this purpose, we can use a “big integer” data type or a library that provides support for arbitrary-precision arithmetic.
A common example of such a library is the “BigInteger” class in many programming languages, which allows for the storage and manipulation of arbitrarily large integers. By utilizing this class or a similar library, we can store the given number without losing any precision or exceeding the range of the data type.
In conclusion, since the given number exceeds the capabilities of standard data types like long long int, float, char, and double, we would need to use a “big integer” data type or a library that provides support for arbitrary-precision arithmetic to store the number accurately.
