CODEWITHSUNDEEP
csize
arunr
arunr

Reputation: 59

Specifying number of bits for a datatype in C

Is it possible to specify a datatype such as int or long to be able to store larger number of bits than it usually supports?

Example int supports 32 bits and long supports 64 bits. What if I want a long to support 128 bits or greater? Is it possible without the help of any libraries?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 126

Answers (3)

xaxxon
xaxxon

Reputation: 19761

C is designed to give you a slight abstraction beyond the bare bones of the hardware you are operating on. Because of this, the types that are commonly available correspond to data types the CPU can operate on natively.

Large integer types require multiple CPU instructions to perform basic operations on, and are therefor not native operations and not a part of the core C language.

That's not a rigid definition of C, but it's a reasonable general description of the general gist of the design decisions.

Upvotes: 0

Paul R
Paul R

Reputation: 212969

gcc supports built-in __int128_t and __uint128_t types on 64-bit platforms.

Upvotes: 0

Deepu
Deepu

Reputation: 7610

It is not possible in C. You have to use some libraries like Bigint to achieve it.

Upvotes: 2

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