Re: prime factors shortcut question

Using the floor or integer portion of the square root will do.
Regards,
Jim
jimpanes@xxxxxxxxx
jimpanes@xxxxxxxxxxxx
"Everything is easy when you know how."

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Hall" <mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Blind Programming List" <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 2:13 PM
Subject: prime factors shortcut question


Hi all,
I am trying to find the prime factors of a massive number, over 600 billion,
in perl (it is just an activity in a class, not an assignment). I know you
can factor the square root, which is good since I cannot store such a big
number in a simple scalar in perl, but I run into a problem: the square root
of my number is not a whole number, but a decimal. Of course, then, any
modulus I try will not work since a decimal mod any whole number will not
return 0. What do I do? Do I get the floor or ceiling of the square root
operation? Is there another trick? I do not need something vastly complex
that works for most situations or explains things from a cryptographic
standpoint, all I need is what to do with my decimal square root so modding
works and gives me factors. Thanks for any help!


Have a great day,
Alex
New email address: mehgcap@xxxxxxxxx

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