HUGECALC


Neil Rubenking September 24, 1991 (Utilities)


Purpose: A command-line calculator utility that can perform addition,
subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and factorial functions
on numbers with up to 254 significant digits.

Format: HC n operator [n]

Remarks: The n operand variables may consist of any string of digits up to
the 127-character maximum of the DOS command line. The operands must not
include commas or other formatting punctuation, and must be separated from the
command and the operator by at least one space. Two operands are required for
all operations except factorial. The operators recognized are +, -, *, /, ^,
and !.

When output to the screen (the default) or redirected to a printer or
other DOS device, HUGECALC prints the name of the function and inserts commas
at every three digits in the numeric result. If the output is redirected to a
file or piped to a program input, however, only the numeric result is sent.
Note that when it accepts input from a file or via a pipe, HUGECALC uses that
input as its first operand.

Example: If a program that prints 10,000 permutations a second is asked to
print all possible combinations of 13 characters, how long will it take? The
command

HC 13 ! | HC / 10000 | HC / 3600 | HC / 24

pipes the factorial of 13 (the possible combinations) to a second
instance of HC, which divides it by 10,000 (the permutations per second). The
result is piped to a third instance of HC, which divides it by 3600 (the
seconds in an hour), and finally to a fourth instance of HC, which divides it
by 24 (the hours in a day). The answer printed on the screen is:

QUOTIENT: 7
REMAINDER: 4,

that is, 7 days, 4 hours.

Note that all such chained calculations must be strictly sequential
and that parenthetical expressions are not supported.